An excellent way to be Harry Potter in his first year at Hogwarts! (Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone (PC))

Member Name: jack_sparrow

Product:	Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone (PC)
Date:	16/05/09 (20 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great background music, different places to play in, wonderful representation of Hogwarts

Disadvantages: Sometimes repetitive environments, earning house points is totally useless

There was nothing about the starry sky that night to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening...

This is the opening line when one starts a new game on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (PC, Electronic Arts). I can still remember myself, feeling awestruck and overwhelmed with excitment during the early hours of Christmas nearly eight years ago. I was still eleven at that time, so you couldn't blame me so. It was my first computer game that I ever owned; I remember watching the game's advert on LivingTV in late Summer, and telling my parents that it was what I wanted for Christmas.

And I wasn't dissappointed. Here I had my opportunity, as a recently-converted Harry Potter fan, to be immersed in the real thing... errr... virtually :). As you might have noticed by now, I'm totally biased in favour of this product, and in this review I'll tell you why, together with details on the game itself.

The cutscenes in the game are made up of cartoon-like images with specific text underneath being read by the game's narrator. The first cutscene briefly describes the night Harry Potter ends up at the Dursleys, and how for 11 years he lived with his dreadful uncle, aunt and cousin, until the day he received an invitation telling him to attend Hogwarts, the wizarding school (the game doesn't follow the novel accurately). This cutscene also tells you that Harry went to Hagrid to purchase school items from Diagon Alley, his journey on the Hogwarts Express, the Sorting Hat process and the start-of-year banquet together with Dumbledore's speech (the headmaster of Hogwarts).

It doesn't take long for gameplay to begin, and after a brief chat with Dumbledore, you take control of Harry for the first time. Before starting, you are told what you are supposed to achieve in the following period, and you'll also know how many wizard cards you can find (if there are any to find). You will be told what you need to achieve in the following period every time in the game, so you're sort of guided.

There are a total of 24 wizard cards that you can find throughout several places in the surroundings of Hogwarts (all gameplay in the game is located in Hogwarts and its surroundings). If you manage to find and collect all 24 wizard cards, you'll unlock a special card as a bonus (I won't tell you of who it is about). With the spells you learn at classes (more on them in a minute), you can unlock secret locations and hidden places full of items, which totally add to the excitement in the game. Other things you collect are Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, which you can exchange with Ron's cheeky brothers Fred and George for wizard cards when you meet them in the game. Lastly, chocolate frogs are a way of boosting your health, and they are quite useful especially if you have been nearly killed in a fight with gnomes or any other creatures.

Spells are the essential way to progress further into the game. You'll learn spells in classes (and you'll also learn one with Hermoine) by using your mouse and accurately drawing over the spell symbol on the screen (don't worry, instructions will be read out before you start). Afterwards you'll have a challenge where you can apply the newly-learned spell in different situations and earn points for your house, Gryfinndor. Unfortunately, this also is one of the drawbacks of the game, where, no matter how you fare in earned points, Gryfinndor will always be second, and will only surpass Slytherin at the final cutscene. You will also use your spells to repel and kill the different creatures and enemies you'll encounter throughout the game, ranging from gnomes to venomous tentaculas.

Gameplay is based on finding your way around, and solve any puzzles or tricks that are blocking your way to continue. Don't worry about this though, as the first thing you'll do after starting the game is have a sort of minigame-lesson with Fred and George where you'll be shown amongst other things how to jump, explore and collect Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans (you'll also be awarded your first wizard card). Gameplay is also based in different environments, which is certainly pleasant in my eyes; you'll have a run through the forest doing an errand for Hagrid, have a flying lesson, run around the school in Harry's invisibility cloak to deliver Norbert the baby dragon to Hogwart's top tower whilst avoiding the nasty caretaker Filch, and play Quidditch through the game... yes, that's right! You'll play as Gryfinndor's seeker, meaning that you must catch the Golden Snitch in order for the game to end. After completing the game, the Quidditch Tournament in the menu section will be unlocked, and you can play Quidditch with any Hogwarts House that you want to in a Hogwarts House Tournament.

You will also run into many of the memorable characters in the book series, like Ron, Hermoine, Hagrid, Dumbledore and Neville Longbottom and the unpleasant Draco Malfoy, and finally Lord Voldemort. I must not forget to mention the simply amazing and wonderful background music, which is totally relaxing and beautifully composed (I think it was taken from the film). It helps to get you more immersed in the game itself, however, to be honest, the game does have its flaws too. Sometimes, you'll find repetitive areas (meaning similar secret places and so on) and jumping might be tedious if you don't switch on Autojump in the Options Menu.

All in all, I recommend this game to all Harry Potter fans, especially the younger ones. Even though the graphics may be old by today's standards, and that gameplay gets a bit boring sometimes, for me, this game will always be special as it increased my interest in continuing to read Harry Potter and have a go at being him... virtually.

PC Minimum Requirements (as found on the back of the case)
OS - Windows 95/98/2000/ME/XP
Processor - 266MHZ Intel Pentium II
Memory - 32 MB RAM
Hard Drive - 500MB
CD-DVD - 4 Speed
Graphics - 4MB PCI/AGP
3D Accelerator - Direct 3D
Direct X - Version 8.0
Input - Keyboard, Mouse

Thanks a lot for reading this review, please leave any comments, criticism and suggestions, and if you find any spelling errors do tell me please.

Summary: My review of the game