 Review By: Andrew Joy |
Developer: | EA UK |
| Publisher: | EA Games | |
| Genre: | Action | |
| ESRB: | Everyone 10+ | |
| # Of Players: | 1-6 | |
| Online Play: | No | |
| Accessories: | Memory Stick Duo, Wi-Fi (Ad Hoc) | |
| Buy Now: |   |
Unlike some people, I make no secret of the fact that I am a Harry Potter fan. Sure, the books may be derivative (just look at Wizard’s Hall, The Midnight Folk and countless other older books if you don’t believe me) and essentially written for children, but I also find that Jo has woven all the pieces together into a compelling read for any age. Like most people, after I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, I’ve eagerly awaited each subsequent volume and, more recently, I even threw myself into a sort of "media blackout" until after I had finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in the series. And, like most people, I have my favorite – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is not it. (That honor, in case you’re wondering, goes to the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, though the last one was a great end to the series.) It isn’t that I have anything against the story itself in the fifth book, just that there isn’t enough of it and the whole thing seems comprised mostly of little subplots rather than major events. Some may disagree, of course, but, personally, I would have been much happier if it had been broken up between Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (the fourth and sixth books, respectively), though all three are quite massive in size. However, even if you do like the story, it shouldn’t be the reason you pick up this game.
As most of you likely know by now, Harry Potter is the Boy Who Lived. Years ago, when Harry was just a baby, the powerful dark wizard Lord Voldemort tried to kill him, but the curse rebounded on the Dark Lord, seemingly bringing about his downfall. However, thanks to means that aren’t fully explained until the last two books and the events of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, He Who Must Not Be Named rises again; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is set directly after his resurrection. Harry hasn’t even started his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry yet, and already things have started off badly: the Ministry of Magic (and most of the magical community) refuses to acknowledge Voldemort’s return, Dementors attack Harry while he is on summer vacation, and his attempts to fend them off land him in court for the use of underage magic. If there is any glimmer of hope, it is that Hogwart’s headmaster Dumbledore has once again formed the Order of the Phoenix, a society of witches and wizards united against Lord Voldemort. However, once Harry gets back to school, he finds things aren’t as good as he’d hoped, as the Ministry of Magic has appointed one of its own officials to teach – or, rather, not teach – Defense Against the Dark Arts and spy on Dumbledore. So, in order to learn practical defensive magic, now, when they need it most of all, and to usurp the reign of Dolores Umbridge (the new DADA teacher), Harry and his fellow students form an underground movement called Dumbledore’s Army.
As I’ve said, though, the story shouldn’t be why you pick up Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and that is mainly because it only represents a relatively small part of the game. In fact, the main plot (and, really, that’s all you get, as most of the superfluous stuff is either represented by an oh-so-brief cutscene or has been cut entirely) is actually rushed along at quite a nauseating pace. In the beginning, you cast a quick spell to ward off the Dementors attacking you and your cousin Dudley in Little Whinging, then you’ll have a quick controls tutorial at 12 Grimmauld Place, the headquarters for the titular Order (which you’ll visit once again later in the game for some key plot points that’ll pop up in the later books), and then it is off to Hogwarts, where you’ll spend the rest of the game, until you head to the Ministry of Magic to face off against Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Even though all this stuff may seem considerable, if you only play from plot point to plot point, it only seems to take a few short hours, which is ridiculously unacceptable in my opinion. However, even if it isn’t a selling point and it may leave you feeling somewhat gypped in the end, and in the other versions of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, there was really enough content to help make up for it; things are a little different when it comes to the PSP.
The story itself is roughly the same no matter where you play it, with perhaps a few lines of changed dialogue and that sort of thing. You’ll still be rushed along from place to place and you’ll still get the chance to play as some of the other characters from the series, such as Hogwart’s Headmaster Albus Dumbledore and Harry’s godfather Sirius Black (though, like the consoles, they play pretty similar to Harry and you don’t get very long to experiment). However, while all versions share the same butchered, time-saving story, it is supplemented on the consoles – from the Wii to PS3 – with a few interesting mini-games (such as Exploding Snap, Wizard’s Chess and Gobstones) and tons of exploration. The exploration is still present in the PSP version, but as you are given full run of the castle, you won’t be dipping into your bag of spells to perform chores a lot, but more often pulling newspaper articles from their hiding spot. And, instead of accumulating Discovery Points to earn trophies in the Room of Rewards, each paper will unlock (among other things I’ll get to in a moment) photo galleries in an area called Harry’s Trunk, which you can access outside the main game. It isn’t as much fun as you might find elsewhere, and you’ll probably complete it a lot sooner, but as a fan of the series, I can say that it is nice to still be rewarded, even if the format is a bit different.
Posted: 2007-11-11 12:13:07 PST