For Movie Fans Only! (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (DS) (PC))

Member Name: katygriff

Product:	Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (DS) (PC)
Date:	17/02/06 (160 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun, Quite Hard and Stunning.

Disadvantages: Straight Forward Game-Play.

I am a big fan of Harry Potter and I have this need to collect everything to do with it and although I know it is quite sad for a twenty three year old woman to do so but never mind. When I had my DS for Christmas one of the first games I decided to play on was the Harry Potter Goblet of Fire game and to be honest it is brilliant.

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So what is the game about?

Well you basically play out the book / film of Harry Potter and the goblet of fire. At the Quidditch world cup, Lord Voldemort and his followers wreak havoc and from then on it is up to Harry, Ron and Hermione to defeat them and find out what is going on. Use all three members to utilize their best skills and use magic to defeat enemies along the way.

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Things to know:

Price – £24.99 on Amazon and £29.99 in shops.
Certification – Recommended for ages 7 and over.

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Characters and Story:

The story in this game is pretty good and follows the film loosely. The one thing that really gets to me about the story though is that it is very disjointed and you never really know where it will take you next. I got confused at one point because I was in Professor Moody’s classroom and then the next I was in kind of a volcanic looking area defeating giant lizards. It does stop you every so often and you read about what is happening and what you will have to do next so you do get a sense of continuance.

The characters in this game are great and people who are fans of the book and film will not be disappointed because they are all there. The people you play are Harry, Ron and Hermione and you get a choice in every chapter who you would like to play as although all three are together throughout the game. You do not get any back story because I think the game producers have designed it so that if you play it you will be a fan of the books and films so therefore know who everybody is anyway.

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Graphics and Sounds:

The graphics in this game are superb and the characters look like the actors from the films. The settings for the game are so different from what looks like it is quite icy to then volcanic scenes and then to the actual school itself everything looks like you are watching a film. The graphics are so good that the movement with all of the characters on screen is so smooth that you do not get any blurring and you can consistently see where everything is. The DS screen is quite small and can fit a lot on it but you can see everything clearly enough to play without interruption.

The sounds are quite good in this game but to be honest most of it is just Harry Potter inspired music to get you in the magical mood for the game. It is quite funny that whenever you play a character and then call the others over it has the actual voices of the actors from the film. All in all though the sounds are good because they are fitting to the game, film and books so you get the Harry Potter atmosphere.

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Game-play:

The game-play in this game is pretty good because it varies from being easy to being quite hard so it keeps you entertained. The buttons are pretty hard to get used to at first and I did keep casting the wrong spells for quite a while but once you are used to them then it is ok. Moving the character and knowing what spells to cast are quite challenging and you do have to remember what works best in many of the situations the game puts you in.

The touch screen is utilized in this game quite well and you use it mainly for casting spells. It is good in the way that you have to work out how to use it and it does give you a few choices to use to defeat enemies but then it is bad that the choices remain very similar and to be honest they do get a little boring as I know which one works more so I use the same all of the time.

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Verdict:

I do love this game and although I have not completed it yet I think I am pretty far judging by where I am with respect to the film. I think that visually you could not as for much better and the actual game-play keeps you entertained constantly.

The story is good but like I have said above it does become disjointed. I have played many of the Harry Potter games before so I knew what to expect and it didn’t happen. They obviously cannot go all out and produce a PS2 style game so they have done the best that they can for the Nintendo DS. You are limited in a way by what you can do whereas I am used to going exploring to my hearts content on the PS2. The only thing I can see that limits the story on the DS is the fact that they have not or cannot come up with the same sort of game-play as the PS2 so they are limited to what they can allow you to do.

Although you cannot go exploring around the school in this game, it does give you enough entertainment to make you keep on playing. The thing that I like but annoys some people is that you have to follow one path in this game and you cannot diverge. You do one task and until that has completed you cannot progress. I like this as I often get distracted in games and forget what I am supposed to be doing as you can do too many things at once.

What I do love about this game is that it is not too easy and several times I have been stuck and have had to look for solution on the internet or asked my sister for advice on what to do next. The buttons are pretty easy to get used to and the graphics are stunning so I do love playing it. What I do like about this game is that every now and again you get to play small games like sorting out jelly beans and matching cards; this gives you more skills and is actually a nice break from the game at times.

A good thing about this game is that it does have wireless capability so if you have a friend who has a DS then you can play with each other. As I do not know anyone though who has a DS I cannot give you any more information.

I think my favourite part of this whole game though has been when you go to the Yule ball and it provides some light hearted fun away from the dark side of the game. You get to dance and socialize so it is a great part. My favourite monsters to kill are the lizards that go black when you have cast enough spells and then you have to drop them into water.

In conclusion I think that this game is one for the movie fans only as it does not particularly follow it but the characters are the same and they get a lot of ideas on how the game looks from the movie. The game-play is good and not too easy at times but due to the fact that it is a little straight forward at times and it does not utilize the microphone features of the DS or the touch screen to the max I think I can only give this game four stars.

Thanks for reading.

xxx

Summary: Decent Game.