Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

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One of the things that I most loved about Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was being able to wander around Hogwarts at will, visiting classrooms, Hagrid's Hut, the Owlery, even to Harry's bedroom above the Gryffindor Common Room. Based heavily on the sets from the movie, the immersive three dimension atmosphere charmed and made for a truly fun experience. Fortunately, the makers of "Half-Blood Prince" retained most of the Hogwarts from the game, and gives you yet another in-depth experience in "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" for PS3.

Sometimes, with games such as these, the makers try to change too much of a game that was well loved, removing some elements that a player would truly love for something different (the awful game Spiderman 3 comes to mind). Electronic Arts knew better. This game appears to follow the plot of the movie quite well (since it hasn't been released yet, it's hard to actually judge this, but it does follow the book). Harry is back at Hogwarts. This time, along with the plot of the movie, you have three different tasks: join the dueling club, the potions club, and a fun ride with Quidditch games and practice. As Harry wanders around the castle, he must also collect shields and mini-shields, upon which additional powers and abilities are awarded.

If you didn't play the "Order of the Phoenix" game, you will love the vast expansive Hogwarts. One of the selling points of that game was the fact that there are no "load times", which is still true about this game. You wander around the castle at will, and really never have to wait while entering a classroom or transitioning from inside to outside. While you are constantly given "tasks", important to the plot, you can delay the task and roam around, which I found myself doing. Once of the skills that I quickly developed was dueling, which you grow through joining different house dueling clubs and defeating the people. If you get lost in Hogwart, a quick button push and Nearly Headless Nick comes and will escort you to your next task.

Another aspect I liked from the first game is the ability to complete magic spells. You have spells you learn to be used during dueling and fights, and then you have other spells to use as you wander around the school. While the spells are few, you really do feel like you have some fun control over them. You mostly use "wingardium leviosa" to make things fly, like benches, flower pots, and chairs. Still, great fun!

One of the downsides to the game is the fairly wooden aspect of how some of the people look, especially the girls (and their plasticine looking hair!). And is the game challenging? I wouldn't say that. But I don't buy a game like this to be challenged, but to get a chance to "experience" Hogwarts as if I were in one of the movies. And with that, it's very successful.

I'm anxiously anticipating seeing "Half Blood Prince" after a six month wait from last year. Until then, you'll find me roaming the halls of Hogwarts in my new game.

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Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince PS3 game is not for everyone, even though it is rated so. It is for people like me, I guess. Let's see...I really like the Harry Potter movie series to the point of seeing them multiple times each. I also like the occasional video game playing, but the game has to either a) have a cheat code that allows me to live forever, because I don't like having to start all over again, or b) be relatively easy enough that someone who doesn't like failing too often and having to start all over again can not get frustrated. Does that make sense? Basically, I only enjoy playing games where the difficulty is in some of the puzzles that require the brain to work and not so much in the combat. This is not a 'shooter' or fighting game, and thank goodness. There are plenty of those to choose from in other ways. This is a story adventure and, so far, the one and only chance for a fan of the world of Harry Potter to roam around the ENTIRE Hogwarts grounds and buildings.

Very similar to the Order of the Phoenix game, HBP follows that same format. You go through the story (of the film) and there are little tasks you must do here and there and things to collect if you want to do that. The things to do in this game, as mentioned in the description, are such as making potions. This one can be tricky once in a while but it's a timed kindof 'mini-game' where you have to use various ingredients and ways of boiling them in your cauldron all within a time frame. There is also the Quidditch practices and games. These are not as difficult as they sound. The path to follow is set out for you with these giant stars you must fly through. It gets to be fun after you get the hang of it. Finally, there are wand duels. These can get annoying if not repetitious. As you progress in the game you will learn new wand combat spells and you get to face not only other Hogwarts students in dueling practices, but such folks from the movie as Bellatrix Lestrange, Fenrir Greyback, and of course Draco Malfoy.

But, for me, and hopefully many others, the fact that this game does not compare with shooting smugglers, zombies, or other humans with guns, is the draw and charm for me. I don't like games where I have to shoot, I just don't. But that's another story. Yes, Harry has to use a wand to inflict semi-damage on someone but they always get up and run away when defeated...they don't die in a pool of blood. Again, thank goodness. So, if you don't like playing games with those things HBP (and Order of Phoenix) will delight you. The best part being....you get to walk around ALL of the buildings and grounds of Hogwarts, just like you see in the movies. It is fantastic and well worth it. It's all there in glorious detail and you can go just about everywhere. The only place I can think of that's really missing is Moaning Myrtle's bathroom!! Maybe one day they'll have a game that has ALL of the areas from ALL of the books..so you can explore the Chamber of Secrets, the dark forest, and dive to the bottom of the Black Lake? Hmmm? Would be great.

In Half Blood Prince PS3 you also have a couple moments where you get to play as someone else. You get to be Ginny Weasley during one of the Quidditch games. But, the most hilarious and almost absurd moment in the game is when you get to play as the love-potion struck Ron Weasley and 'follow' Harry to Professor Slughorn's office to take an antidote to the love potion. While playing Ron you walk all slinky and the music is sassy. If you stop Ron and don't move, after a moment he will do a "all the girls love me" kinda dance which is absolutely hilarious the first time you see it. Kudos to the EA person who put that in there.

So, all in all Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince PS3 game is wonderful for not so serious gamers and fans of the series. The Playstation games for the first four movies are completely different not to mention a lot harder than Phoenix and Half Blood. In fact, in all four of the first games I can't get past the first quarter of the game..they are that hard. With no cheat codes, I just give up, frustrated. Thank goodness with HBP you can enjoy playing with ease. Yes, there is a little challenge here and there in some areas, but overall it is a grand time to be had.

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OK, first of all let me say that this game is incredibly short. If you really tried you could beat the story part in 4-5 hours without much effort.

The game pretty much consists of three "mini-games" that you must play to advance the story every now and then. Other than that it's pretty much just going from place to place (and some places can be hard to find and take a while to get to, more on that later) to advance the story.

The three "mini-games" are: potion making, duelling and flying.

Potion making has you making a variety of different potions, whether it be in potions class, as a favor to someone or in the Potions Club Harry can join. The actual potion making has you selecting the different ingredients as the book on the right tells you what you need, then adding them to the potion. Not the greatest mini game, it tends to get boring quick (and frustrating if you're trying to earn one of the games many "badges" which you get for achieving a certain goal, like mix a potion in under 35 seconds, etc.)

Duelling, is definetly a step up from potion making. Harry can join up to four "Duelling Clubs" in the game (one for each Hogwarts House) and battle other students with spells such as Stupefy, Expeliarmus, Levicorpus, Wingardium Leviosa, etc. (yeah I know I probably spelled most of those wrong:P)

And last but not least is Flying. There are Quiditch matches that you must play to advance the story, but you can also join the Flying Club to fly anytime. Flying consists of you simply flying through stars as you follow the Snitch. If you miss too many stars though, you'll run out of time and have to start over. It's not that difficult, though.

Other features:

Navigation~

You can press the select button to bring up the helpful ghost, Nick and he will take you to your current destination. You can also choose the "Where is..." option from the menu to select a location yourself and he will lead you there.

Hogwarts Crests~

There are 150 Hogwarts Crests hidden throughout the game, so that adds a little replay value, if you wish to find them all (you can continue searching, even after you finish the main story, as well as anything else you want to do)

I think that pretty much wraps it up. Unless you are just a die hard HP fan, I'd definetly rent this one first (as I did). If not at least wait till a price drop, because [..]is a little much for such a short game.

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This game is cool. I bought it for my nephew so he would have a different game to play on my PS3 when he comes over, but I really enjoy it too! I just think it is amazing that the game incorporates the World of Harry Potter so completely. The only thing is some of the characters' eyes are creepy!

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I've bought the harry potter games from the first year to the fifth year storyline and the one true thing I've loved about these games is the free roaming abilities in the game(Except for the awful fourth year which didn't allow the free roaming). The games follows the movies version mostly and tries to stay with the book but like the movie version some parts are cut out which is somewhat understandable as it would take more than one disk to finish the game. The one thing I'm amazed at is the graphic detail of the world of harry potter and the vastness of the areas you can explore, of course for players just exploring is not the only thing you want to do bu to do magic, play quiditch, and make potions just like Harry Potter and this game allows for you experience all that. The animation for the characters themselves is still pretty good but if you're expecting some truly great cgi animation like the Final Fantasy VII advent children movie don't expect that here there is only so much they can do with the area of animated detail of the game and still have the available space to leave a vast area of exploration in the game as well. The only small complaint I have is the save game feature, when you save the game you don't really start where you left off it seems but after the end of the chapter or cut-scene which is a little annoying but forgivable. So for all Harry Potter fans out there and for the price of this game I say here's another great choice for your game library...