This latest Harry Potter game is of course based on the Warner Brothers' hit movie currently showing at all good cinemas near you, and some rubbish ones as well. If you’ve read the book or seen the movie then you’ll know that Harry & Co. are now gangly teenagers, and the game seems to have grown up too. There has been a real change of direction, gone is the gentle 3D platform adventure-style of game experience, and it now bears more resemblance to its EA movie-based stablemates from the Lord of the Rings movies like The Two Towers and Return of the King.
The story opens with Harry, Ron and Hermione all watching the Quidditch World Cup. Havoc ensues when the stadium is attacked by Death Eaters, and so the game proper begins. The first level is simple to complete and the real story of the game starts to unfold. A deadly-dangerous tournament is going on known as the "Triwizard Tournament", and just one wizard from each of the three participating schools is chosen (by the Goblet of Fire) to take part in the taxing events. These tests include taking on a fire-breathing dragon, saving your friends from a freezing cold lake, and finding your way out of a huge and confusing maze. Somehow Harry Potter ends up being entered for the tournament, despite being a “special” fourth entrant.
At the start of each level you’re given the option of choosing one of the three main characters: Harry, Ron or Hermione – this doesn’t actually make as much difference as I’d hoped, as whilst they might start out with slightly different stats, each of will eventually unlock the most of the same stat bonuses and abilities, this obviously means that the characters will eventually become all but identical to play as. More variation would have been cool, and surely Harry should have been more powerful in certain things than the others. Disappointingly you can’t swap between the characters during a level, but the other two will follow you through. A smart feature here is that you can play a three player co-op game, combining the three friends’ powers and casting spells co-operatively to create more powerful magic. To stick closely to the storyline however, not all the levels allow it, and also a feature that would have been a lot of fun on Xbox Live is again ignored by EA – the Xbox isn’t exactly snowed under with magical RPG co-op games is it?
You unlock stat bonuses by collecting the assortments of cards. These cards might be character cards, quest cards or creature cards. Character cards are unlocked by collecting a certain amount of Bertie Bott's Every-Flavor Beans. Players can use the 'Accio' spell to chase down and capture these dynamic, magical beans. There are also several levels of character card classes, which are obtained by increasing your Magic Mastery level, which in turn can be increased by experience. You get extra experience by the rating you receive from using your magic spells, so that every successful spell means you’ll receive a certain amount of experience – I made it sound complicated but it’s simple really – it’s an almost identical system to the Lord of the Rings games.
In both games you can obtain new skills and much more powerful attacks based on points earned through your attack rating, so the better you are at the game, the more quickly you become a powerful wizard. The more powerful the spell, the more the controller will vibrate in your hand – you can feel every movement of the wand.
The other types of cards; creature cards are given automatically when a character defeats that kind of creature, as long as it’s done in the manner shown on the card, quest cards are found by performing certain missions. As you progress through these missions there are also other items that you must collect in order to advance in the game.
Goblet of Fire features a large amount of magic spells that can be performed, although nowhere near the ridiculous number of attacks/combos available in the LOTR games. There are spells that allow you to open doors, lift objects, put out fires by casting water on them, or attract beans to your character. The spell casting system works well for the most part, but sometimes the game selects the “correct” spell for you, when you might want to try something different – sometimes the reaction times seem a little sluggish too.
What you get with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a decent enough movie/book tie in, it has some very nice graphics here and there and beautiful spell effects, and the likenesses are good (although I don’t think the real actors did the game voice-overs, which is disappointing). If you’re a Potter addict then you simply have to play this game, and even Lord of the Rings fans missing their fix this year would do well to try this spectacular but gentler magical adventure.
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