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- Price: £29.99
- Players: 1
Harry Potter is one of this year’s biggest success stories after the four books that have been released to date about the young boy’s magical adventures, but bear in mind that this review is being written by someone who doesn’t know his Hagrid from his Hogwart’s.
Don’t ask me exactly what you’re meant to do, other than explore Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft, meet up with your friends Ron and Hermoine, beat the school bully, Draco Malfoy, as well as his henchmen and get from A to B to do what you have to in a game that amounts to an easy Tomb Raider style 3D platform adventure, presumably made easy because it’ll be mostly kids who play this and they don’t want to have to faff around with pixel-perfect jumps.
The graphics are okay, but nothing special – about all we’re going to get on the Playstation for the rest of its lifetime, with its usual jagged edges and clipping rearing their ugly head. Still, with the eerie sound of the wind blowing in the background and an echoey appearance to everything that happens, it strikes up a good atmosphere in general.
As for the gameplay, if you’ve played with Lara Croft – and who hasn’t – then you’ll know what to expect, but on a far more simplified level. No particular complaints, other than that the gaming world’s moved on, but then EA were hardly wanting to make their mark with a revolutionary one here.
Overall, this is one of those entertaining but specialist titles that’ll only appeal to those who either thoroughly enjoy reading the books, or at least have the faintest idea what is going on – so that doesn’t include me… on both counts.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.