Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

"I couldn't put it down!"

Graphics: I can describe the graphics in one word: beautiful! The character's faces look so alive! When Harry talks, you can see his expression change, and his lips move exactly as if he is talking. The environments are extremely detailed and when you fly on your broom, Hogwarts looks so realistic! This game truly shows off how powerful the Xbox system actually is.

Score: 10/10

Presentation: This game only loosely recreates the movie, but other than that, it has good presentation. When Harry moves, he looks like a real person, rather than some puppet or something. The spell challenges are well designed as well. I love the Quiditch setup too!

Score: 8/10

Sound: Harry's and Ron's voices are a bit higher than in the movie, but other then that, they really sound like the characters in the movie. I love making everybody speak different languages. There is not much music, but what I've heard isn't really that good.

Score: 8/10

Gameplay: Superb! Excellent! Amazing! Thrilling! The gamplay is close to topping Mario! Even if it isn't really true to the movie, it amazingly fun. I played the game for hours! Harry has only the Flipendo spell, but you learn other spells as you go along. And, you don't press and hold one button and aim, and when your target is something that you can cast a spell on, you let go of the button, like in the PC version. Instead, you can assign a spell to a certain button. This makes boss fights a lot more easy.

Score: 10/10

Replay Value: Could be better, as there isn't much urge to get all the Wizard Cards. However, I'd guess the game would take about a month for the average gamer. I wish that you could duel more than twice.

Score: 6/10

Comments: This is one great game; it is a HUGE improvement from the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It is also easily better than the PC and PS versions. But I've heard the PS2 version has some more features. It is sooooooooo close to topping Mario but not quite. The game is so addicting, and the only bad thing is that the replay value is low. If you are a HP fan, you can't possibly go wrong with this game.

Buy or Rent? If you love the HP series, you should defiantly buy the game. If you only remotely like the game, you should rent it to try it out.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 02/22/03, Updated 02/22/03