Alot more than your average movie tie in... But that dosen't mean it's good. In depth review.
The half blood prince is the fifth direct game tie in the series, and it isn't great.
In Thbp you control harry quite normally with the left stick holding the right trigger to run faster, but the strange addition (Which I believe was introduced in Order of the phoenix) is being able to control your wand with the right stick, somewhat remnant of total punch control from Fight Night Rounds 3&4. At first this feature will seem daunting and very difficult to use, but after a few minutes of playing around with it you should get the hang of it and running around the hogwarts grounds slamming benches tables and all sorts into walls can be acheived by just a flick of the stick.
Hogwarts itself has come on in leaps and bounds since the other games, it really feels lively with all of your favourite rooms from the films being there to explore... All exploring is slightly spiced up by the collectable Hogwarts crest, you will have 150 of these to collect all together 25 of which achievable by collecting "mini crests" which you can draw from selected items by tapping up on the right stick twice, there are a few diffrent ways of collecting the crests other than just picking them up, it can involve moving around objects with spells.. Burning down bushes and slapping banners to reveal other crests.
But unfortunatley everything seems rather shallow and clunky, especially combat which takes a Prince Of Persia style twist of you going into a seperate mode of play where you use a very small amount of spells to defeat opponents, which will turn routine after a while (Just knock em to the floor and use a charged stuperfy).. But the difficulty in the duelling clubs rises enough to make it still a slight challenge. My least favourite part of the game was making potions which involves grabbing different ingredients and throwing them into a pot while boiling and mixing them to achieve the right colour. This gets mind numbingly dull awfully quick and yet is the most used mini game esque objective in the game.
These mini games would be a complete loss were it not for the quidditch game, although just as boring and routine as the others.. This is presented in a nice cinematic camera where you fly your character through stars to give speed ups and time bonuses.. Which means it stays interesting slightly longer as it is sometimes genuinley thrilling to zip through the trenches of the stadium and then finally catch the snitch.
My biggest problem with this game is the voice acting, often times the expressions are faker than Kanye West and Chris Brown having an apology competition. Although Harry and Ron have their in game characters made with great detail, all of the other cast for some reason look absolutley terrible and almost nothing like their real life counterparts... The worst being Snape who looks as if he has been hit in the head with a hammer repeatedly. And of course most of the characters roaming the castle are repeated an unbelievable amount.
The storyline inkeeps with that of the film pretty well although you will ultimatley be depressed by how awful the acting is compared to the film. As a rental Harry potter and the Half Blood Prince shines but as a full priced retail game you would be better off spending your money on something else.
Pros
+Good Spell system
+Well modelled castle interior
+Quidditch can be occasionally thrilling
+Spells are satisfying to cast
+Hogwarts crests add some nice objectives to go after
+Graphics are pretty good for a movie tie in.
-Bad mini games
-Can be daunting at first
-Awful voice acting
-Character models look terrible
- Tango.