Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix


If playing minigames isn’t your thing, then you can simply head straight for the main tasks and play through the storyline. These different tasks can range anywhere from helping Fred and George hide cases of fireworks to searching for ingredients for Potions homework. The diverse amount of tasks available helps encourage players to fully make use of the huge castle. While there's a nice assortment of tasks, many of them require little or no skill at all and usually involve simple fetching tactics. Many of the tasks give no explanation or helpful clues as to what to do next, and completing tasks can often become repetitive and frustrating.

To help make navigation easier, everything is located in your own personal Marauder’s Map. By using the Marauder’s Map you can essentially find the location of every place and person within the Hogwarts grounds. By selecting a certain object, black imaginary footprints appear (similar to those shown in the Prisoner of Azkaban film) to give you a sort of GPS direction on the most direct route to take. While this is a great idea in theory, the overall execution falls short due to the footprints always moving too fast for you to follow. Walking through narrow corridors and staircases can often lead to confusion and backtracking, as well.

Visually, Order of the Phoenix looks fantastic, with enough flair and Harry Potter memorabilia to make any fan happy. All of the locations look so much like the movie sets that at times it feels like you are actually standing among the cast. Many of the locations that get vague references, such as the school’s Aqueducts or Trophy Room, are also created to look just as stunning as the remaining locations. Even the characters look good, despite their lack of facial expression, and all of the main characters look true to their real-life counterparts. Students even sport different color clothing corresponding to their houses, which is an expected but still nifty detail.

While the visuals got a complete overhaul and turned out well, the same cannot be said of the game's audio mix. The music is recycled way too often and character dialogue (especially that of extra characters) gets boring fast as none of them say anything remotely interesting. The biggest noticeable offense, and one that was butchered throughout the game, is the terrible voice acting. While many of the movies’ stars reprise their roles here, there are blatant moments when characters suddenly speak without British accents or girls sound like men and vice versa. It’s quite noticeable if you happen to have seen all of the previous movies and know what every character sounds like, but it shouldn’t be enough to damper your fun too much.

Order of the Phoenix is without a doubt the best entry in the Harry Potter game series to date. Its impressive ‘go anywhere’ style of play is every fan’s dream come true and the amount of freedom available in the game will keep players interested for a long time--just don't expect much replay value. Anyone hoping to play this game without first reading the book may be turned away by the constant bombardment of Harry Potter subtlety, but die-hard fans will be hooked from beginning to end.

Games, News, Reviews, Media and More