Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

"Harry Potter and the Case of 'Been there, done that'"

Good: Flying Buckbeak, nice graphics, good voicework.

Bad: Clumsy character switching and magic, short, too easy, little progress from previous instalment.

When the Chamber of Secrets came out Harry Potter fans had cause for a minor celebration. A free roaming Hogwarts with fun combat, enjoyable side-quests and a reasonably long story. I'm sure many avid fans will disagree, but to the average gamer, this unimpressive new instalment has little to offer. There are a few nifty elements, but the series appears to have taken a backstep with this.

After a short cutscene which shows dementors attacking the Hogwarts express you are given control of Ron and have to drag an unconscious Harry to safety through various carriages, away from the vicious creatures. It's a terrific opening and whilst it is the most simple of platforming (walking backwards through a maze of obstacles) it is so atmospheric and exciting that we enjoy the experience. It's too bad the whole game isn't constructed with such panache in order to hide what is essentially very shallow gameplay.

On the return to Hogwarts, game places you in charge of all three main characters Harry, Ron and Hermione with a character switching system allowing you use each character's special abilities and spells. The problem with this is the fact that you might want to say, fly Buckbeak around Hogwarts and collect an important item. The problem being that once done so, you fly back to Hagrid's hut to find the other characters have wandered off around the grounds having tried to keep up with Buckbeak. Why would they do this? It's frustrating and it takes yonks to get the three back together again. Then there are the obligatory stealth sections which were hardly welcome in the last game. Apart from being annoying, these missions are often thwarted by your comrades brainlessly walking into plain view. You can get them to follow you, which often results in having to stop and wait for them to catch up, but most problems could have been solved by a simple ‘stay here' command which is oddly absent.

Whereas the magic and targeting system in the first game was just fine, the duelling has turned into a clumsy clash of flipendos flying here, there and everywhere. None of the spells look as graceful and well….as magical as they did. They look and sound artificial and clunky. Also, why can we only equip two spells at a time instead of three? Because the ‘switch character' command takes up the circle button. It could have been assigned to one of the directional buttons which aren't used for anything else but instead we are forced to visit the menu even more often than the previous game to swap them around.

Apart from the changing of characters, a few new spells and the flying of Buckbeak instead of a broom, the game-play hasn't essentially changed when it should have made some big improvements. After all, that's what sequels are all about. Progress. Yet it's evidently made none. The missions that you engage in are very similar to those you will have done if you played Chamber of Secrets. They get repetitive and dull rather quickly, as does the collecting of Famous Witches and Wizards cards which you just won't be bothered with. There's also one unforgivable fact that quidditch is none existent. You simply watch a few cut-scenes of the matches and never do you get to fly a broom even once, which for me was a huge letdown as I loved to play quidditch in the last game. Even with the side-quests the game is short; you could complete it in about 8 hours which is perhaps a mixed blessing as the mission formulas get repetitive after a short while.

It's not all bad news though. The game does have some positive features, such as Hogwarts which boasts the new castle of the third film and it looks fantastic. The graphics overall are pretty good and Hogwarts and its grounds is big enough to make plenty of discoveries whilst completing the various side missions. Voicing is spot on and although flying Buckbeak is hard at first to get grips with it is eventually a joy to do, it's perhaps the game's best feature. There is also an added bonus if you have an eye-toy as you can play some additional mini-games, though in truth these won't keep you busy for long. So there is still much to explore of Hogwarts even if the game is short. All in all though, it's quite a disappointment. Those who played the last game won't find much here that's different except that some of the positive elements of the first game have been removed and it won't provide much of a challenge to older gamers. Young kids however, will probably find this enjoyable and fittingly easy to breeze through. Apart from that, Potter fans only people.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 11/11/08

Game Release: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (US, 06/02/04)