In Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, your main task is to find students to form the Dumbledore's Army. Along the way, you will get side missions to complete so as to proceed in the game and gain popularity among the students. Sounds simple? Well, the tasks are not exactly difficult or challenging but they are very frustrating as you need to run round and round Hogwarts so many times, you get sick of it.

Your wand is your only weapon but the fights are nothing worth looking forward to. All the fights, even the final one with Voldemort is unbelievably simple. Unlike the previous HP games which only requires you to use a single or simple combination of buttons to cast a spell, in The Order Of The Phoenix, you need to remember the different buttons to press in order to cast the correct spell and it takes a bit of time to learn, coordinate and remember.

Ron and Hermione are most of the time beside you, helping you with your tasks. Always blocking your way and nagging you on your missions, sometimes I feel that they are more of a nuisance.

Talking about nuisance, the glitches frustrates me the most. Some of the ones I encountered:
I entered a room and for no reason, the screen went blank and I need to restart my game.
There is a mission that requires me to locate Zachary Smith in the library who will ask me to find the monster book for him. In order to enter the library, you need to gain enough popularity to do so. There are 2 methods to gain popularity. First is to remove the daily prophets dispersed around the school and the second method is to help the students complete certain tasks. What you should do is to NOT remove the daily prophets first. Instead, complete the students' tasks and when you have gained enough popularity to enter the library, you will automatically be prompted. And when that happens, you can then find Zachary Smith in the library. If you have done otherwise (gain enough popularity by removing the daily prophets), you will not find Zachary Smith and if you can't find him, there is no way you can complete this game.

Another thing I don't like about this game is how stiff the characters are. They move like zombies and when Harry is holding his wand, he moves sideways like a crab...He can't jump and you will find his movement very unnatural. The image is rather jerky also.

The camera angle irritates me too. One moment when you are pushing the analog stick to your right, the charcter is moving in that direction but the next moment, the charcter could be moving in the opposite direction.

Of course, this game has it's good points. The campus is huge, grand and magnificent. It is so huge that in order to know where you are going, you need to use the marauder's map. The music is not bad also.

I give Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix 5.3 upon 10.

Labels: Game Reviews