Video games made after blockbuster movies tend to suck. There are a few jewels here and there such as the age old adventure game Blade Runner or the more recent computer interpretation of King Kong. But for each good or even decent movie based game released there are dozens of attempts that count on the franchise being enough to sell the game. Who cares about gameplay when we got the license, right? Thankfully despite being one of the biggest money grabbing companies on the planet, EA rarely do this. With as many developing studios as they have they usually at least try to deliver a mediocre experience – the previous Harry Potter games are proof of that. But can we, with the switch to next-gen systems, expect the Order of the Phoenix to rise above that?


Alahamora
The first thing that needs to be said about OftP is that your enjoyment of the game is largely dependent on your skill level and how much you care for the Harry Potter universe. If you are a hardcore gamer that avoids anything branded with the Harry Potter name like the plague, you might want to steer clear of this title as well. If on the other hand you enjoy platforming and puzzle games or are into the whole saga, you will probably enjoy this game a lot. Why, you ask? Let me explain.

Order of the Phoenix follows the same pattern the previous Harry Potter video games did. You spend most of the game exploring and learning new spells. Story progression is tied to cutscenes but overall the fable represents only roughly half of the entire experience. The rest is spent unlocking various secrets that Hogwarts holds and solving the countless puzzles found all over the place. Both parts are professionally intertwined, so you will usually spend half the trek from one story location to the next moving pictures around and trying to find secret points.


The interesting thing about the whole approach is that just like before you aren’t required to think much to solve most of the puzzles. If you see a broken armor suit on the ground you can bet your ass that you will be required to repair it. Four portraits on the ground usually mean you will move them around one by one so that when put down the four form a bigger picture. Broken vases? Same thing as the suits. Most of these puzzles only yield secret points, but sometimes repairing all the suits in a room opens up hidden areas.

The biggest change when compared to the previous installments is the fact that all platforms got the same game this time. There are minimalistic differences between the versions such as six-axis control on the PS3 version and achievements on the Xbox360 version. Compared to the two the PC version lags behind both in terms of presentation and control. Graphically there is little to no difference between the console versions and a reasonably high end system will deliver a similar experience, at least when it comes to the level of details. The framerates however are not nearly as high as on the consoles. Considering the rather basic character models (think 2004-era graphics) this is rather disappointing, but once you realize that the whole Hogwarts school is being streamed and there are no loading screens whatsoever you will probably cut the developers some slack.


Hogwarts
Actually, you will cut them a lot of slack. The previous Harry Potter games did an ok job of presenting the huge school, but you never really felt like you were exploring this magical castle that the books and movies paint before you. Granted, not even Order of the Phoenix is perfect in this aspect, but it gets a lot closer than any of the previous games. All of the signature locations are present and this time around it will actually take you a while before you get from one location to the next. Especially at first when you are unfamiliar with the whole school layout, Hogwarts will seem huge and without using the in-game waypoint (or rather footprint) system you will get lost within minutes. With new areas getting unlocked all the time you might think that things will only get worse further on, but they don’t. You will realize sooner or later that the entire game world is composed of story based locations, corridors that connect them and central hubs where the pathways cross. If it weren’t for these crossway locations the game wouldn’t feel as open-ended as it does.

Maintaining the illusion of a living environment are all the students that wander aimlessly around the corridors. Bumping into them usually triggers comments and quite often these comments aren’t directed at you, but either Hermione or Ron who always follow you around. The comments start to repeat pretty fast, but they do make the entire experience more lifelike. You can try talking to most if not all the students if you wish, but like with the bump in comments these exchanges are mostly fluff and quickly become repetitive as well. Speaking of fluff, the entire school is littered with talking pictures, flying ghosts, moving staircases and pretty much anything you can think of. At first you will probably love all of these distractions, but it won’t take long before they become annoying. Especially the moving staircases that tend to move around at precisely the wrong moments, impeding your progress.


Wingardium Leviosa
As before players can perform a plethora of spells to solve puzzles and unlock new areas. Those of you who played the earlier PC versions of the game (and to some extent the console versions) will remember that spellcasting was completely automatic and players were only required to point the cursor at an object and press the left mouse button. This obviously got boring pretty fast, so this time around spell casting requires some work. Selecting a target is still pretty easy as the game focuses the camera on objects that can be interacted with the moment the left (or right for human targets) mouse button is pressed. It is here that things get “tricky”. That is because unlike before you have to use mouse gestures (or on consoles analog stick gestures) to cast the right spell. For most of the game the gestures are limited to sliding the mouse up and down or making circles, so you shouldn’t miss-cast even in the heat of student vs. student combat. The interesting thing is that Harry will use completely different spells when in combat, but will be required to perform the same gestures as the exploration spells require. On one hand this is a wasted opportunity to create hilarious scenes when targeting humans while on the other hand this does simplify things for the less adept gamers. Spellcasting is unfortunately the area where the PC version fails miserably. Unless you use a gamepad to control Harry, you will have major problems targeting specific objects, especially in rooms where the camera is fixed. This comes as a bit of surprise, as all the previous PC versions played like regular shooters, albeit observed from the 3rd person perspective.

Now, once you get over the pathetic controls of the PC version and break down the gameplay you will realize that the entire game consists of walking from one place to the next and using spells on objects. It’s really that simple. Granted, there are a few unique situations that I won’t spoil for you (especially if you haven’t seen the movie/read the book yet) but for the most part every action you do can be broken down to either moving around or gesturing with the mouse. This makes the game pretty boring for gamers that expect challenges as the biggest challenge in this game is fighting the controls. Casual players will however enjoy the freedom of exploration and the constant “difficulty” (easiness would be more appropriate here).


Conclusion
As I said in the beginning, your experience with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is largely dependent on your gaming proficiency and your love/hate for Harry Potter books. Personally I am no fan of the series, so I obviously didn’t care much for all the tiny tidbits the authors hid around Hogwarts. Being a fairly good player I also found most of the gameplay repetitive and bland. I am sure however that any youngster or Harry Potter aficionado would love this game and spend some considerable time trying to unlock every single hidden room and secret. But even he would probably notice that the PC version controls lack refinement and polish.

Gameplay	74/100	Exploration and spellcasting compose the bulk of the game. Being able to search every inch of Hogwarts has its appeal.
Graphics	70/100	Character models could do with some extra polygons. Can’t complain about Hogwarts though – high-res textures and on the fly streaming truly make it come to life.
Sound	87/100	Being an official Harry Potter game the soundtrack is typically great. Most of the movie actors lent their voices to the characters and it shows.
Value	71/100	If you ignore the fact that all you do is cast the same spells all over again the game offers a lot of play time.
Multiplayer	N/A	You are always in the company of Hermione and Ron. Does this count?
Overall (not an average)	72/100	If you are a Harry Potter fan and don’t want your games to be too hard add 10 points to the score. If not, deduct at least 15. Or as Snape would say: “15 points from Gryffindor!”