Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

"Dobby's kind of game, but not mine."

Ok, this my first review so don't expect anything professional. In a nutshell this game is bargain-bin bound. This is due to bad camera control, lack of replay value, and its correlation with its namesake is horrendous.

Alright I guess I need to rate individual aspects now,

graphics: 5
One of the few good things about this game. the realism of the graphics seems to be meant to compensate for the lack of story line realism.

controls: 4
the controls (minus the camera)are alright, reminiscent of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The menu Screen is difficult at times. It's generally a one button use for spells.

Camera: 2
Pathetic! I mean Sonic Adventure 2 Battle's was better, and it had the same problem. It wouldn't stay in place. Imagine being at the edge of a huge abyss, there's a corner where you can jump across, but you have to time it perfectly. You get the camera set up right where you need it, you move ever so slightly and it switches to default and you fall in the hole. This major flaw makes the already difficult task in the game darn near impossible.

sound: 3
The sound effects seam alright. Some of the spells sound made-up(more on that later). as for the music, it sounds rather creepy at times, you know when it needs to be, other times I think the composers were high on bubotuber pus.(read HP: Goblet of Fire to find out what that is)I think that because the music sounds cheesy at times.

Namesake Correlation: 1
I am Resetti, hear me rant. The correlation between this game and it's namesake ,'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' by J.K. Rowling, is absolutely horrendous. Yeah I'm a mark and I nitpick. So let the pickin' begin.
Events go by too quickly in this game. The first basilisk attack happened the first night in the game, It was wo months before that same attack in the book, which happened to the cat,Mrs. Norris, not Nearly headless Nick, on Halloween, not on September 2nd as the game made it out to be. Harry gets taken to Dumbledore way too early, You only play one Quidditch match, against Slytherin, and Harry doesn't have just one class a day (Honestly, does anyone at EA even read the books?)While on that subject, some of the nighttime objectives are ridiculous. Even somebody who casually watches the movies knows that Hermione is fully certified to get her own durn books, and 'Hogwarts:A History' is one she's almost never without. And I mentioned earlier that some of the spells sounded made up,OK just about all off em'. Only ''Expelliarmus'' and ''Alohamora'' are actually in the series at all. And,and this really ticks me off, they can't even get the house colors straight, Hufflepuff's color is yellow, not purple. And finally, I used the name of the character ''Dobby'' in the title of this review. If this game is your only tie to the series you don't even know who Dobby is. He's in the book, he's in the movie why is he not in the game. Answer me that EA!!(/end rant)

Final Analysis:
HP marks who are going to nitpick over details(like me)don't give this game a second glance. If you just want to try this game, rent it, and if you like it go ahead and buy it. you may get it real cheap.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 07/04/03, Updated 07/04/03