Great game. Graphics are great once adjusted in the game’s options menu. Controls use both mouse and w a d s like in the older Potter games. I only started playing it for a few hours today but so far it’s been really fun. Some of the spells take practice to do half way decent, like Wingardium Leviosa, and potion mixing.

EA took all of our opinions about the older games to heart I think because this time they included almost all of our favorite aspects that we loved so much in the previous games, and left out the stuff we hated.

In this one we collect crests, both hidden and obvious, cast spells, duel, explore, and Harry wears a gorgeous red cape in some parts. The flying is MUCH easier, so is quidditch. Dueling is easier, too.

It’s storyline play is set up like the older games..Harry is assigned a task or two, then a cut scene (can turn on subtitles in options menu), then more tasks, more cut scenes etc. Harry sometimes has to follow another character somewhere but he doesn’t always have Ron or Hermoine dogging his every move. There’s freedom to explore the HUGE castle and its grounds. It’s not like Goblet of Fire at all, it’s more like Prizoner of Azkaban.

Great game, glad I bought it.

Make sure your PC system meets min requirements before buying. No less than 512 MB of RAM or more for Vista (256 MB min for XP), 1.8 Ghz or faster, 5 GB hard drive space, Direct X 9.0c or compatible video card.

My laptop is 1.6 Ghz processor speed, cut scenes are kind of slow and choppy on occasion but game play is fine.

—Just as a helpful note to those who buy this:

The game can be played two ways..either whizzing right through it by using Nearly Headless Nick all of the time and not doing any of the side challenges OR, by taking your time, exploring w/o Nick’s help, talking to the other students and characters (walk up to them and hit Return key..they are the ones who dole out the side challenges), finding all of the crests and mini crests, joining the clubs, and earning all of the badges and rewards. If you choose to whiz right through, there is an ‘Endless Day’ after the credits role so you can go back and complete the other stuff but it’s nowhere near as fun as taking your time and doing them all as you go along in the game.

Just wanted to point that out because if you whiz right through and ignore the rest you’ll probably feel short-changed on the length of the game.
Rating: 5 / 5

I have played all the previous HP games on PC and I have always enjoyed them, even though some were better than others. EA has done a good job with making the movies into enjoyable games through out the years. That being said, number six was good, but could have been better. So far I am enjoying the game. But there are some things I wish EA had thought more about. Here are some pros and cons:

The graphics are really nice this time! They have really evolved and the amount of detail in the Hogwarts castle is impeccable; so life-like!

I am glad they brought back dueling from the second game. This is a lot of fun and it actually can be challenging, which is nice. They also added potion making and flying. Potions is new whereas flying was in previous games. These are fun if you want to take a break from the story-line.

That being said, I think EA went a little too detailed in the story. I like how they showed what the story was (after all it is an adventure game) however the amount of cutscenes feels greater than the time of gameplay. There is not an even balance. There were many missed opportunities for some gameplay where EA just inserted a cutscene. For example, towards the beginning, they show a scene with Malfoy going to his initiation ceremony and Harry and his friends watch. Instead of making this a fun part of the game where players could have followed Malfoy to his destination EA decided to immediately skip to another cutscene. In this respect, i feel some gameplay time was lost to cutscenes in instances like this. There were a couple more where I was like wait shouldn’t there be some mission or adventure here after the cutscene?

I also think EA may have sacrificed hardcore adventure for graphics and extras like dueling. The castle is amazingly realistic and I have to wonder if they spent so much time on this and the well-done yet many cutscenes that they forgot to add in some adventure for the player. It just seems like the story is being watched rather than played, which is not the goal of a videogame. I like cutscenes; they are part of any adventure game but I should feel like I am playing the game not watching it.

Even though EA seems to have given graphics a greater importance than gameplay, this game is still pretty fun. If you liked the other games then I would definitely go ahead and get this. It is also a cheaper alternative to the console versions (except for DS it’s the same price). I played the Wii one and find the PC/MAC one much better. And all HP fans will have fun even if gameplay is somewhat lacking.

Don’t get me wrong, the game is fun, there were just some instances where I felt they left the player out a bit in place of cutscenes. It is fun to collect items like in the previous games and unlock rewards.

Another reviewer gave some good advice I’d like to also point out : it is more fun to explore than always follow Nearly Headless Nick. As for side challenges, so far it has been mostly dueling but some of them are fun; like now I have to make a potion for someone.

And also if you are playing this on Mac like me it runs great!

So I would say go and get this it’s not so expensive and though it has it’s faults it’s fun; I just played for like an hour and a half!

Have fun!
Rating: 4 / 5

After having played previous versions of this game, I was disappointed that some of the other lines of play had disappeared in this version.

However, this is a wonderfully challenging game. Even once your past the story line, provided you didn’t collect everything along the way,there’s a lot of items to collect and things to accomplish which makes it even more fun.

I do wish that they would have brought out a guide althought the new feature of Nearly Headless Nick escorting you around does provide relief from frustration of previous incarnations of the game.

I highly recommend this game for any Harry Potter fan.
Rating: 5 / 5