It time to join Harry, Hermione and Ron for their adventures from the 6th book that is about to be brought to the big screen, but is this title magical or a load of old Hogwarts. 

 

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince videogame is similar to the previous outing in which you play Harry as he goes through various plot points of the film. The main bulk of the game involves you running around Hogwarts solving little puzzles and finding characters to talk to, all the famous faces turn up from Dumbledore to Slughorn even Bellatrix each asking you to get something or go and find someone or start a fight.

 

 

In amongst all of the twisting corridors of Hogwarts you will find many a familiar place like the classrooms, library and The Great Hall all looking great. The inclusion of Nearly Headless Nick as a guide to show you around Hogwarts is very helpful as he essentially takes you to each task if you get stuck, showing you shortcuts along the way, unlike the last game where it was very easy to get confused by the sheer size of the game hub.

As Harry you have plenty of magical abilities to use and learn. With the RS you control the wand, you start with simple combos like pushing back and forth to knock items and swiping left and right to grab, allowing you to move and propel items. Later in the game you will also unlock Reparo to fix damaged items and Incendio to set things alight. The wand powers are rarely used in the main quests and are more required to help collect the many crests and mini-crests littered around the school, collecting these unlocks game extras like new two player Dueling areas.

 

The constant running around the school and trying to move the story along can get a little repetitive and boring, however there are a few exciting mini games to play. First up in the minigames is Dueling which feels a lot more solid than before with the RS again controlling your wand and with combos you can pull off magic like the simple Stupify to the game winning Levicorpus which hangs your opponent upside-down, allowing you to unleash charged up moves. The potion making mini game is fun and here you need to pour out the correct amounts of elixirs and ingredients and heat and stir the cauldron just right . Finally there is Quidditch which is an on-rails flying game where you dodge players and fly into checkpoints to catch the Snitch, a bit like Space Harrier on a broomstick.

 

 

Graphically the game is a bit of a mix, the environments, especially the Quidditch levels look great but the characters seem a little stale and robotic. The speech in the game is great with loads of voices from the film returning to reprise their roles for the game.

 

Once completed the game offers an endless day allowing you to walk around Hogwarts and collect the remaining crests but again this can get boring, without the minigames it turns into another fetch quest.

 

For the 10 short hours this game offered I really enjoyed the mini games but the constant running around Hogwarts will grate after a while as it feels like it is just filler rather than actual gameplay.