Take one of the most well-known children's toy and mix it with one of the most well-known characters in fiction and what do you get? A bloody good game! :-)
GRAPHICS AND PRESENTATION
= Nothing to see, move along! - All Lego games have the same graphics engine so there's not much to shout about really, although the Hogwarts school is fantastically recreated in the Lego universe. All the characters from the books are here in there toy form and, for the most part, are instantly recognisable.
+ I know that place! - As mentioned above, Hogwarts is recreated extremely well in-game but it's not just the school that has had the attention. The surrounding grounds, hallways, gardens and general background feel like they've been ripped from the pages of one of the novels. Paintings wave at you as you walk past, students perform spells, Quidditch players fly in the background. A very nice touch indeed.
SOUND
= Errrrmmmmmmm....! - I'm not sure what I was expecting here as I've played all the other Lego games enough to know what the music is like in these games. The Harry Potter theme music is present and correct whilst each specific section of the game ie: the Dark Forest has the appropriate music. It just feels a little......repetitive.
+ Zap! Crunch! - The SE's in this game are, as usual, spot-on. Although none of the characters talk, you are easily able to recognise the emtions conveyed on-screen via their mannerisms and strange grunt-noises.
GAMEPLAY
- Anyone got a map?! - Okay, I know Hogwarts is a magical place but bloody hell!! Did they have to make it so hard to find your way around?! There's no map and the school is a big place. Each door seems to lead somewhere although for the first few hours, you're never quite sure where. A ghost character leads you through the school for the main missions but other than that, you're on your own. Not great!
= So many spells, so few useful ones! - There are well over a dozen different spells to learn and buy in the game. Yet, all the ones you purchase in the shops are pointless, useless and redundant. The ones you do learn, however, are quite fun to use and you will have to know your Wingardium Leviosa from your Expecto Patronum!
+ How big?! - This is, by far, the biggest Lego game to date. With a masive hub world (where you can return to buy characters, spells etc), huge school + grounds to wander, bonus levels, character tokens to find, cheats to unlock, spells to test there really is a lot to do. And yet it never feels repetitive in a way that you get bored. :-) There are 167 characters, 20 or so cheat/power bricks to find, 200 gold bricks and that's on top of the main story missions of which there are 4 years. Each year is based upon a seperate book and is then broken up into 6 levels. So, 24 main story missions, which you can re-visit to unlock more stuff later on! Perfect. :-)
= Familiar territory. - The gameplay is similar (as expected) to many of the other Lego games. Enter a room, destroy stuff, build something, move on. Not a bad formula by any means but it is getting a bit samey. But then again, it's Lego, what are you gonna do with it if not build it?
Should you buy it?
I reckon so, yes! This really is a great value-for-money game and a worthy addition to the Lego game franchise. Easy enough for kids and addictive enough for adults.
Lego Harry Potter was developed by TT Games and published by Warner Bros. Hours played: 35+ (all offline). Review is based on the Xbox 360 version.
Achievement difficulty: 3/10. They're not difficult by any means but it'll take you a while (30+ hours) to get them all.
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