"This game in one word....horrible"

Now, before I start my review, I seriously am a fan of the Harry Potter series, I honestly don't care when people see a 18 year old boy read one of these fantastic books, the series is great, the movies are good, the game? Horrible, seriously this is a great disappointment and even if you are a hardcore fan of this game, I would never recommend you to buy this…and here is why

Story 3/10
I honestly didn't think it was possible…but somehow EA butchered the story so much that it is now an incoherent lump of a story. POA was one of my favorite books in the series, but seriously they somehow ruined it. Here is what the story is about for those who never read Harry Potter. This book is about a man named Sirius Black who is presumably out to kill Harry, and while Harry attends his third year at Hogwarts, he is trying to unravel the mystery of the mysterious man named Sirius. Another additional complaint I have is the stupidity of how dungeons are fit into the game. Here is what normally happens. Harry, Ron and Hermonie, go get a spell book! Go into a dungeon and find it for me! This has got to be one of the worst Movies to Games out there, but if you actually do understand some of the pieces of the story, you'd be please to get some familiarity out of this.

Graphics 6/10
Definitely nothing to go get excited over, the graphics aren't amazing, but they do past normal standers so that is a plus. Nothing much to comment on because it is the run of the mill graphics

Gameplay 6/10
One cool thing they did in this game? Allow you to play as all three main characters! Now that I got that out of the way. This is more of a puzzle-based game, but there is some combat here and there. The puzzles in this game are actually the only good thing about it; sure none of them will actually puzzle you, but it reminds me of Zelda with all the crate pushing. So that should give you an idea about how some of the puzzles are. The combat in this game is horrible though; you get to only use one spell to actually attack (Besides dementors who require a special spell, that is useless besides for the dementors.) The camera is mostly funky but nothing that you can't tough out, and the nice thing about it, is that you can control it and switch it to a nice overview type of camera (Think real time strategy). A thing I again hate about this game though is the pathetic collectathon that is actually a big part of the game because you will always being getting potion ingredients for Professor Snape's class which is actually more annoying than fun. The best thing about the game play? Is flying Buckbeak, besides that, the rest is horrible and not even suited for a child.

Sound 5/10
Now, the background music in the game is actually pretty good…but you know what would make it even BETTER? If it didn't skip so much. Also the voice acting? Horrible, did they get a old woman to do Hermonie's voice? Because that is what she sounds like, Harry sounds like some kid they pulled off the street and paid a few bucks to do his voice, because he doesn't even sound like Harry at all (Except the British accent). Ron is the only person that actually sounds decent, but that is about it. Sigh, what a waste…

Replay Value 1/10
Remind me to thank EA for sticking that in the game later, oh wait, I won't have to because there is none. Unless you count replaying the game all over again as some form of replay value. Nothing to see here folks.

Buy or Rent: RENT
I'd say neither but if you really, really must play this game, then please rent it. It really is so bad; I'd probably pay for your rental, just so you won't have to feed EA money for making such a disappointment.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 06/10/04