Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

"Tedious and repetive"

I rented this game a couple of days ago, and to be frank, it is just plain bad. Then why a 5/10? It has its fun places, but the tedious parts far outweigh them. On with the review

Graphics: 6/10
The graphics define the word mediocre. They are nothing spectacular, but not that bad either. Its what you would expect from a first-gen GC game. I dont know what the framerate is, but it slows down sometimes for no reason. Harry sometimes makes weird movements that you didn't control. He also has to use both hands and lean on a door to slowly open it. Average

Sound: 7/10
This would have been higher, but there isn't really a lot of music in the game, and when it is on, you barley notice it, which isn't exactly a good thing. Sound effects are OK. Nothing out of Eternal Darkness, though. Some spells sound like a dud firework, while others just sound cheap.

Gameplay:4/10
The only thing that saved this from a 0 are the few occasionsal intresting parts to the game. You have 1 class per day, and then usually something at night. The day challenges aren't that bad. Almost all, if not all, night objectives involve you sneaking around Hogwarts to go retrieve something in the middle of the night. (ex: You have to sneak into the Restricted Section of the Library to get Hermionie a book so she can read you 2 senences to you. This took me about 30 min and a boss. Why couldn't you go get it safely in the morning?) You have to sneak around ''prefects''(student guards), which can be tricky, yet boring as Harry loses yet another 10 House Points from being caught because of the horrible camera. It is looking down directly above Harry, and can be moved a little with the C-stick. Why can't every game have a camera as good as ED:SN's one? In the day challenges, you go to a class, and the teacher calls you up to go into some passage and somewhere in there is the spellbook you are looking for. The class sits there for 20-30 minutes while you get your ass busted up due to the troublesome camera. I had to re-adjust it constantly, and it gets stuck on walls ans stuff. One neat thing is that the currency at Hogwarts is those every-flvor beans, which only come in about 10 flavors in the game. Boring and repetive.

Value(Play for the Penny)
This is one of those games that will be in the Sale bin at blockbuster for 2 bucks in a year. The game is short, providing maybe 10 hours of gameplay. There are a few minor puzzles, but walking around for a while solves them. The bosses are usually shoot-until-they-die, and involve very little stragegy. It costs $50, which is 5,000 pennies. 10 hrs/60 is 600 min. You get about 1/10 a minute per penny.
Low.

Give this a rent if you like the HP series, but dont buy it, even if you are a fan. The first 30 minutes, youre like ''This is awesome'' and then it all goes down the crapper.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 01/24/03, Updated 01/24/03