"Harry, you suck at jumping"

First things first, I absolutely love Harry Potter. But this game? Crap. I played the PC game first and was expecting all these freaking impossible challenges, and I get this. Geez...

Story: 3/10

They explain ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in any sort of detail. You have to have had read the book more than once and seen the movie to have any sort of idea of what the heck is going on. Even then, you're sitting here scratching you're head at the insanity of it all. For about the first couple hours, you running around collecting books, spending eons avoiding prefects, and then in about 10 minutes they solve the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets. They didn't even attempt to put in pointless fillers to take up time! What??

Characters: 2/10

I was expecting to be annoyed at Gilderoy Lockhart and snicker when he gets Obliviated. Instead, I stand with him in a bookstore and then listen to his one sentence about Expelliarmus. He never even follows you into the chamber! Come to think of it, neither does Ron. Hermionie sends you on two quests to get books, and then disappears until she shows up at the very end to complain about exams. You don't even go see her when she gets petrified! Snape scolds you once and then you never see him again. Overall, there was no development and it seemed like Nintendo was just hoping that everyone knew what was going on, because they didn't have a clue.

Quests/Challenges: 2/10

It started off promising, going on a mission to find Ginny Weasley's school items, and the maze they call a forest. They stretched it a bit, but at least they didn't hand everything to you. After that, they just seem to give up. The rest of the game is made up of spell challenges that take about 5 minutes and sneaking past prefects. If I heard, "20 points from Gryffindor! Get back to your dormitory!" one more time.... I played the PC and was frustrated with how hard all the timing challenges were, but at least you got some satisfaction from completing them. These were beyond pathetic. You ran through two rooms, got a spell book, ran back, beat a gargoyle, and wow 40 points!

Difficulty: if I'm allowed, 0/10

About half way through the game, it seemed like the other houses just allowed you to win. I finished with 505 (got caught once by a prefect) and Slytherin came in a close second with a whopping 300. All the flying and mini tasks were pointless and beaten on the first try with no effort on my part. I died twice in the game, both due to the stupidity of the game. The first time, I'm sorry to say, was in a challenge. I kept using the wrong spell on these pointless floating chain balls.

Boss Battle: -9999999999/10

'nuff said. I was excited when I got to the chamber, expecting they'd make up for everything, and hoping I was in for a bunch of obstacles before a thrilling final boss battle. Instead, you ran down a corridor and then cast three spells and watched the snake writhe in agony. That took longer than the battle. And then a fang just flies across the room and stabs the book! Wtf?!

Camera: 0/10

This was the cause of the second and final death. In this room in one of the challenges with a million ghosts crawling around (can you even kill those?!) there were a bunch of ledges that you had to jump across to reach a doorway that you had to skurge. I'd seem to reach the ledge and expect Harry to grab on, but he'd just fall. And what's up with losing beans when you get hurt? Anyways, every time I tried to move the camera, it just turned back. God I hated that.

I thought it couldn't get any worse than the fourth Harry Potter game for PC. But I was wrong. Oh so wrong.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 07/27/09

Game Release: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (US, 11/14/02)