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Harry Potter & Chamber of Secrets |
by Tyjeda
12/8/2002 |
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Have you ever wanted to be a wizard? Well now is your chance. Partake in the roll to fill the shoes of the young Wizard in training Harry Potter. Where now you don’t have to read about it or watch it. You can control it. Explore the grounds at Hogwarts. Where you won’t just learn spells but to have an adventure of a lifetime. Play Quidditch on Harry’s Nimbus 2000 broomstick.
Back-Story
Nah you don’t need a back-story do you? You should know all about Harry Potter right???? Well I guess I’ll tell it for those that aren’t fascinated with the books.
Young Harry Potter was the boy that lived. Over threw the Dark Wizard Voldemort that his mother died to cast it on him to save his life. Only to be thrown into a Cinderella story of growing up with his wicked Uncle and Aunt. Then when he turned 11 he found out that a secret had been kept from him. He was a wizard and would be going to Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry.
His first year there wasn’t an easy one to say the least. Not only is he in new surroundings and learning his balance but has to save the school from the return of the Dark Wizard.
Now here is where our story begins…..
Year Two
Year two Harry would be returning to what feels like home to him more than returning to his Aunt and Uncle’s for summer vacation.
Well it doesn’t even start off good. He misses the train to Hogwarts. How he got to school almost has him expelled. Well his bad turn of luck doesn’t stop there. He starts to hear voices that no one else can hear. Another one of his gifts makes him an outcast by all his classmates. It will only get worse before his year is through. A darkness before the storm.
The Experience
First we fell in love with the books, Then we redefined it all and seen the movies to make our imagination possible. The next step is to take a hold of the control and turn his world upside down in a game.
The books are great where you will feel what the character feels. To know what they are thinking when something happens to them that wasn’t expected.
Then you watch the movies that will show you the fear on their faces. The tears that are in the characters eyes. Which is something you can’t get out of a book - no matter how good it is. Where you have to see it for the full effect to kick in.
The next logical step is to turn it into a video game. Where you can explore what you want. To live the world how you wish to the extent of the game will allow you too.
Unfortunately Xbox starts off in the second year. So why you are there is a complete mystery to you if you know nothing about the series. The first game was on the playstation and the PC. Which at the time this reviewer didn’t have a playstation nor a PC that was good enough to run it. So my first impression is a decent one.
I have read the books and seen the movies. Loved them both but the game seems to lack on something. I don’t know exactly what it is. It has done a better job converting the movie/book to game form than I have seen some games turned into movies. It doesn’t have the magical charm the other two forms have.
Playing the game
The story line is a hit and miss of the book. It tries to follow the storyline while still trying to give you something to do. There are really two ways of looking at it. This could be the stuff that Harry had to do while not doing the things the book tells you about. While still making reference to the major things that we knew happened.
The puzzles in the game are fairly easy. I wasn’t expecting Myst style puzzles but a little harder than they have set so far. The puzzles range from pushing blocks ‘Tomb Raider’ style to cliff jumping ‘Mario’ style. I have to give it to them they have mixed it up a bit to where I don’t feel I’m doing the same things over again. So that part has made the game a little better to me.
Though I’d have to tell you, if they looked at me and made me do some of the things they make you do to gain spells. I’d tell them to go get it for me. Some of the things are just plain ridiculous. I can understand though because if they just made you sit in class all day to learn them, then it wouldn’t be half as much fun to get them. Though some of the tasks are a little unjust for what you gain.
This is a puzzle game by nature so there isn’t extreme about of action to keep you plastered to your seat in no hold bars, over the top action thriller. So you’ll spend a lot more time look and finding your next task than actually doing it.
Something that I just don’t quite get. You can pretty much explore the whole of the castle. I think there are some ‘Keep off the grass signs that I missed. Because when you are outside you can’t go onto the grass you have to keep to the paths they have set for you. Which I’m sure they did this to save space but they could have made it smaller and allowed free roaming.
Controls
They aren’t the best of the best controls. The hardest part of any 3D game is judging the jumps from one place to another. Where I more often than not end up missing and have to start the whole puzzle over again. So from that aspect of things it can get very frustrating.
The spells have a lock on mode where you can see the target you are trying to hit. Though I have found out that it is more on autopilot because if you are in the vicinity of where you are aiming at it will hit the target that you are aiming at without the lock on.
Flying is by far the most fun thing to do in the game. I didn’t picture Quidditch the way they make you do it in the game. Though tedious but still fun. It takes a bit to get use too but before you know it you’ll be flying like the pros. You’ll also have access to the grounds of Hogwarts where you can just fly around whipping around corners flying to the ground and zipping back up again.
You assign three of your spells to either ‘x’, ‘y’ or ‘b’. I was expecting more of a Nightcaster feel for it that you’d have to scroll with one trigger button and fire with the other. I have to admit it does get annoying that the tip of your wand glows all the time. I guess they needed away to show you the wand was there.
Tasks in the game
Tasks range from all different sort of things. Like getting a friend out of a hidden room by sneaking out at night to obtain a spell to Dueling classmates in firing spells off at each other. Where you will find yourself sneaking past prefects by clinging to walls MGS style looking around corners and setting off decoys. Just so you don’t get points taken off of your house for breaking the rules.
One of the things that you’ll have to do is collect famous Witch and Wizard cards. Which you’ll find scattered throughout the game. It adds more depth to the books because this is something that you will probably never find out in the books themselves. So it is interesting to see what they have the famous witch or wizard doing. Just a little tid bit that I like about collecting them.
Gaining your second level spells is a little more difficult than other tasks in the game. Once you have gotten these spells it will let you access new parts of the schools to continue your missions. I was a little disappointed that there weren’t more spells in the game. There really isn’t too many spells in the books either but if you are playing as Harry Potter you want to feel as magical as possible. That is just my view of it.
Collecting Every Flavor Beans so you can purchase items such as stink pellets to Famous witch or wizard cards you can find in different stuff throughout the game. I have convinced myself this is about near impossible to do. Every time you are hit you lose beans along with life (feel like I’m being robbed they should only be allowed to take one or the other). This makes it hard to get the stuff that is being sold. I have a hard enough time keeping a hold of two yet alone to get a 100.
Graphics
They aren’t Willy Wonka good but the graphics are decent. They won’t have you picking up your jaw from the floor. The lighting effects are not much to be desired for. Though most of the objects in the game seemed to be blocked more than actually looking the way they are suppose too. They do a good job of making Hogwarts a whole. They make good representation of the characters they need too. When I see Hagrid something just seems to be a miss with him, or Harry Potter for that matter. I mean though if you give him a scar with glasses I’ll know who they mean to depict. It should be more than that though in my opinion.
I haven’t played all three versions of the game so I don’t know if it is a direct port between the three or if they did something special for the Xbox version. I will say that not being built from the ground up on Xbox it does a good job for what it is.
Replay Value
This is the wrong reviewer to be asking this. I replay all my games. Every so often I clear off my Xbox’s hard drive and play my games all over again. I don’t get bored easily doing the same things over again. So it’s just a matter of if you are a type of person that is willing to go back through listen to the same story line again just to complete the game one hundred percent. If you are not then this game will not score very high on your replay value score.
Downfalls
The jumps are more frustrating than they need to be. There isn’t enough charm to make Harry Potter what makes him so. It’s going to be way too short. I’ve only spent about 6 hours on the game today and have almost finished. I’ll probably get the average of 10 hours out of it, nothing short of what I expected. It loads almost every chance it gets instead of loading little by little.
Conclusion
All in all if you love Harry Potter you’ll love returning to Hogwarts in game number two on your favorite console. If you are not a fan of Harry Potter then I’d say rent it just so you can fly around in Quidditch. Now only if we could figure out a way to play Quidditch in real life that would be a perk. The graphics are great but they aren’t the worst I have seen on Xbox to date so for the most part you can tolerate for what you are getting out of it. There are many things that I would have done different in the game to get it more like the story without missing so many beats. Yet some may find this the joy of the game that you get to try something different in Harry Potter’s world. To me if you are going to have it that way then it needs another name then the name of the second book.
The scoring has changed a little bit from the last review since it is 20 lashings with a wet noodle my scoring will be out of 20 this time around. So it goes the following if the game would have gotten a 9 on a 10 scale on mine it will either 17 or an 18. (I.E if the game was a 9.2 on my scale it would be 17.2 if it is a high nine. 9.9 it will be 18.9)
Total score 14.7 – Not quite worth beating it till it is dead with the noodle impaled in it. It was worth boiling the pasta though. It just needed a lot more TLC than what was givin to it.
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