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And like every other major franchise these days, the series has made the transition across media, spanning into a series of movies and video games. Warner Brothers and Electronic Arts rightly identified that the series’ affinity to green extends well beyond the colour of Harry Potter’s eyes, with the former churning out a series of movies, and the latter creating games true to the spirit of modern age movie tie-ins (that’s not a compliment).
So the obvious question here is how does the gaming counterpart of the sixth iteration of the series fare? Not as badly as you expect it to. Some of the more engaging game mechanics made it a far more pleasant experience for me than the recently released movie. But I’ll get to that later.
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Let’s start with the story first. Like the previous games, this one also traces the events of the movie via cutscenes, which means that it does a good job of turning the story into a convoluted tryst of teenage romance, while ignoring more important things like tracing Voldemort’s past or unravelling the mystery of the Half-Blood Prince. And while we are at it, the cutscenes are extremely shoddy and very poorly voiced over (comes as no surprise given that only a few of the actors – Tom Felton and Rupert Grint, to name a couple – have lent their voices to the game). If you concur with my opinion that the unveiling of the Half-Blood Prince was a bit anticlimactic in the movie, the game completely obliterates whatever little charm was left in it.
There is no shortage of technical issues with the cutscenes either. For example, one featuring Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter towards the end completely lacked the movement of the lips of the former. All this reeks of a sacrifice in quality to meet deadlines.
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In fact, the story told in this game and the previous ones, for that matter, is a huge letdown and a missed opportunity. A movie can get away with excluding portions from the source material because it has limited time to tell the whole story. However, a game is expected to be lengthier, which means that the story can be told without omitting anything. By occupying that space, the Harry Potter games could have been a great addition to the franchise, and instead of gameplay elements driving the playtime (which stands at barely 5-6 hrs), the story could have driven the game and made it a compelling experience.
Thankfully though, these very gameplay elements happen to be the saving grace of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The entire game is built around three elements: potion-making, duelling and quidditch. Let’s take them one at a time.
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The best among these is potion-making. For the uninitiated, Harry Potter turns out to be surprisingly good at potions in his sixth year. And quite aptly, potion-making is an integral part of the game, with the player being required to brew various potions from time to time to progress the story. The player has set ingredients and a limited amount of time to make the potion. The instructions keep scrolling up on the right side of the screen, with the player being required to add an ingredient in a specific quantity, or stir the potion (done by rotating the right stick), or heat it (by rapidly moving the right stick up and down) until the potion turns to the indicated colour. Overdo it and your view gets obstructed by smoke, which must first be cleared by rapidly tapping the triggers.
The entire experience has been implemented very well to make the player feel as if he or she is really brewing a potion. While the game is forgiving enough to allow a couple of errors, the perfectionist in me kept returning to the Potions Club, frantically trying to finish a potion as fast as I could without making a mistake to get the five star rating.
Next page: Verdict
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Apart from potion-making, the player will have to butt wands with a number of students and Death Eaters to progress the story. Duels are strictly one on one, even when there are multiple enemies present. In such scenarios, the other enemies are nice enough to wait patiently until the player disposes off their friends, a clear influence of watching too many old Chinese movies!.
When a duel starts, the camera sticks behind Harry’s back, and moving the left stick left or right makes Harry strafe in the respective direction. The right stick controls Harry’s wand arm, and different combinations of the movement execute different spells. The more powerful spells like Levicorpus (hangs the enemy upside down for a period of time) or Expelliarmus (knocks the enemy down) are done by a combination of both sticks, requiring Harry to stand still and sacrifice his ability to avoid the enemy’s attack.
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In fact, dueling could have been as engaging as potion-making if Levicorpus wasn’t so unbalanced. It keeps the enemy in the air for far too long, and when the player gets hit by it, he or she can rapidly tap a button to get out of it, negating its advantage for the enemy. My strategy in every duel, irrespective of how intimidating my enemy was, was to connect with Levicorpus and then move close and blast the hell out of my enemy with the stronger version of Stupify. That said, fans will still get a pretty faithful representation of what dueling would be like in the Harry Potter universe, which, in my opinion, is another feather in the game’s cap.
The third gameplay element, Quidditch, can be hit or miss. Fans might enjoy flying Harry through a set of star shaped checkpoints until he catches the snitch. Miss enough checkpoints in a row and the player will have to redo the whole thing. However, the speed at which Harry flies (you can’t speed up or slow down) coupled with the game’s more than generous helping of auto correcting the direction of the flight (when the snitch makes a sharp turn) make it very hard to miss these checkpoints, thus nullifying the challenge. It’s a pity really. When I first read about Quidditch in the books, the first thought that came to my mind was that it would make a great video game.
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Apart from the above, there are Hogwarts crests to be collected and the school itself to be explored. The design of the school has been carried over from the previous game, and is a true treat. For any fan who has dreamt about exploring Hogwarts, this is your chance. Only a few areas are accessible initially. However, the blocked portions open up quickly and you have the entire school at your disposal to explore. You can always postpone a mission in favour of exploring Hogwarts, complete with its moving staircases, talking paintings, secret passages, dungeons, Hagrid’s hut and a lot more.
There are also 150 Hogwarts crests scattered around the school which can be collected. They range from simply being walked over to be collected to figuring out how to get them within reach. Collect enough crests and you are rewarded with either in-game attributes or arenas/characters for the game’s offline multiplayer duel mode.
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Conclusion
All in all, I had a much better time playing the game than watching the movie. Beyond cashing in on the success of the franchise, a developer should always remember that it is very important for fans playing the game to see and experience the fictional universe in the exact same manner that their favourite characters do. Though the story and presentation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince got hung upside down (Get it? Levicorpus!), Bright Light Studio were pretty close to the mark with the gameplay. While it may not be very challenging, the magic of the world that J.K. Rowling has created has definitely rubbed off on this one.
(+) Potion-making and dueling have been designed very well
(+) Beautifully crafted Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry
(+) The overall gameplay mirrors being part of the Harry Potter universe in many ways
(-) Story could have been adapted from the book rather than the movie to include more details
(-) Rubbish presentation
(-) Unfair advantage to the player while dueling
(-) Quidditch
Title: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Developer/Publisher: Bright Light Studio/EA
Genre: Action
Rating: 12+
Platforms: PS3 (Rs 2,499), Xbox 360 (Rs 2,499), PS2 (Rs 999), PSP (Rs 1,599), Wii (Rs 1,999)
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