Review #1 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

For my first review I chose Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I am a big fan of the books and I played the fifth game and loved it so I decided to do my review on the newest game. I know what you are thinking. Harry Potter, how is this going to be a good review, but I am not a fan of the most popular games out right now, and I can actually play this game and be good at it.
The events in this game are pretty easy to explain. Anyone who saw the movie is going to feel like this part is the synopsis for the movie. You begin the game at the Burrow, which is the Weasley’s home. All you do here is help out with chores and practice your flying skills. Flying on a broom, playing Quidditch is one of the main game plays of this game. So while you are at the Weasley’s home you begin to fly on your broom, trying to catch the snitch. After you play this and succeed it is time to go to school. You get into a fight with Draco Malfoy who wins and breaks your nose and cast a spell to keep you from moving. A friend, Luna Lovegood, finds you and walks with you up to Hogwarts Castle. On the way you are learning how to gain points for the entire game. Next you go to Potions class, which I found rather fun, because you finally get to create potions. I have wanted one of the Harry Potter games to let us make potions in class and finally they did with the sixth game. Harry was never good at potions, and he borrows a book, from the professor that has notes in it about easier ways to make potions. It says that is belonged to the “Half Blood Prince.” Harry tries these hints and he makes a potion perfectly. This is the point where Harry gets liquid luck. You then get to learn how to duel with other students. This part teaches you spells, to help you fight and defend yourself. With each new dueling level you learn a new spell. We find out that each house has their own Dueling club and you are invited to fight each of them. After you win your dueling match with your own team, you are summoned to meet with the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. He tells you that he will be calling on you every once in a while during the school year for private lessons, to teach you about your enemy, which is Lord Voldemort. In this first lesson you see a memory that Dumbledore had about the first time he met Lord Voldemort, or at the time Tom Riddle. He was in an orphanage and was the bully and outcast, because he could make things happen with his mind. Dumbledore then asks him if he would want to come to a school full of children exactly like him. After the memory you get to go play quidditch with your team for tryouts. After a cut scene you are able to try your skills at the Hogwarts Quidditch Pitch. Then you are able to join the Potions Club, which is located in the Greenhouses. The potions club is fun because the more potions you make correctly the more you unlock. I had all of them unlocked by the end. You then have to go back and play quidditch against another house, Slytherin. This is your rival house. Throughout this game your enemy at school, Draco Malfoy, is seen sneaking around the castle. Your character, Harry, suspects him of doing something wrong and no one wants to believe you. So you end up following him a few times but can never figure out what he is doing. Dumbledore summons you again and shows you another memory. This time Tom Riddle is a teenager and is talking to your current potions teacher, Slughorn. Tom is asking about Horcruxes, and Slughorn has altered the memory so that we can’t see what he has said about them. Dumbledore asks you to try and find out what he really said. Next you go and play more quidditch against Hufflepuff. You have to win all these quidditch matches or the game will not move on to the next level. Finally you get Slughorn’s memory and return to Dumbledore with it. Then you have to go back and play another, and the last game of quidditch with Ravenclaw, they tell you if you win this match you win the Quidditch Cup. Well you have to win. Dumbledore then takes you to a cave that is possible holding one of the Horcruxes, which we find out is part of Voldemort’s soul. This cave is dark and spooky. There is a lake that looks like glass, and as they are floating across the lake in a boat you can see that there are bodies, thousands of them, in the lake. Dumbledore ends up drinking a potion that weakens him and Harry, you, have to fight off these bodies that are now coming out of the lake. Dumbledore somehow finds the strength to fight with you and you both return to Hogwarts. We then find out what Draco has been up to. He has been fixing a closet that can transport people between two, and he was given the task to kill Dumbledore. He gets four others from the evil side, Death Eaters, to come to Hogwarts and help him in his task. Dumbledore ends up getting killed by Professor Snape. You run after them as they are trying to escape, and Snape tells you that he was the Half Blood Prince. He stuns you and gets away. This is pretty much how the game ends. You can still walk around the castle collecting points, but this ends the story line.

In all, I did not like this game. I felt like the game followed the movie very well, but I felt like the story line was a little boring. I know this book inside out, and there were key points that I thought they missed. I said the same thing about the movie. Plus, this game was supposed to be released last year, November. They postponed the movie, so they also postponed the game, for about eight months. I felt that they had another eight months to improve things on the game and they did not. It was a fun game to play, but for Harry Potter, it was not good enough for me.