GamersInfo.net

I have children: boys, ages 9 and 11. As they've grown there have been few constants in our lives other than video games (I am their mom), bathroom humor, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Harry has been an integral part of my children's development; the stories, films and games are a huge influence on their sense of wonder. I am in debt to J.K. Rowling for this. We have never not played the games over the years — the good and the bad, the console titles for the older children and the PC titles for the younger. The latest offering from the franchise, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, learned many lessons from last year's less than stellar installment, and is already quite a lot of fun!

Half-Blood Prince is a rather action oriented title. The characters have aged and things at Hogwarts are becoming rather dire. The story follows that of the book but is generously peppered with Quidditch (yeah, it's back), dueling, potions making, exploring and general mischief making.

One of the failings of last year's title — I don't mean to harp on it, it simply wasn't much fun — was that it concentrated on a chapter in the book rather than the overarching story. This limited what could be done. Rather than expand what players had become accustomed to, it reduced in scale their experience greatly.

This year, Hogwarts has grown: the boroughs are open for the first time in addition to the Quidditch field returning. With the addition of dueling, 2-player competitive mode has been added. The series has always been greatly peppered with puzzles; now it includes both cerebral and physics-based puzzles.

My initial concern was, like the films increasing rating at the box office from PG to PG-13, the game would outgrow the younger audiences' ability to play. To address this, adaptive difficulty has been built in to adjust after no more than 3-4 failures. The tutorial is always available; and should you wish, Nearly-Headless Nick can either give you a hint on the direction to head or simply lead you there.

But how does it play? On the Wii, quite intuitively.

I took on Quidditch first. My goal was to grab the snitch, the little bugger. The good news, I didn't have to fly the broom just guide it. (BTW, the motion capped the broom flying - which is rather odd if you think about it.) The flight path isn't on rails, it just heads forward. Your job is to point towards stars that bonus you with speed. You've got a beater trying to knock you off your broom the entire way. Enter enough stars and you'll catch the snitch first.

Potions is really quite simple but can get involved. The potions book comes directly from the novel so all of the recipes are "accurate". You will heat the cauldron by fanning the flames to the color indicated; lift the beaker, pour the ingredients until the mixture changes color (if you pour too much you'll have to fan away the smoke); mix the concoction, ad infinitum. Advanced potions require adding creepy crawlies and the like.

My favorite was dueling. Casting a spell was as simple as raising my arm and dropping it. If I held my arm up it charged. If I threw it down quickly in succession I cast a number of spells, each becoming weaker. To protect myself I simply wrapped my arms around myself. I could hide behind cover. It was not only intuitive but fun.

Now that the actors have aged they're available for voice over increasing the quality dramatically. The studio worked with the folks from BioWare who created Mass Effect to ensure they created emotion in the faces of the protagonists. (Ron does become lovesick after all!)

Having not played any of the "down time" of the game it's hard to assess whether the package as a whole is good, but the interactive action certainly is. That the difficulty scales for players of all ages is simply a bonus. And it is Harry Potter; I imagine this universe will be a staple in many households —not just mine — for a long, long time.