Another new foray has proved positive, mostly, for the Potter franchise that just can't get off the ground.
The Bad: The license is still barely used; collection quests and replaying levels are requirements; controlling the characters feels a bit weird.
The Potter books and movies are both major blockbusters. The video games, sadly, don't have the same amount of time and care put into them.
EA has previously shown it's capable of making a great game based on a movie. Lord of the Rings titles were some of the most impressive movie to game transitions ever made.
Yet Goblet of Fire, while attempting again to change up the formula into something truly wonderful, falls a bit flat yet again.
The control scheme just involves a jinx button, a charm button, and an Accio button. That's it. Therefore, three players can easily pick up and play it. Because of the newly added multiplayer, that's a good thing. The game is more available to general audiences, and the books are popular for doing just that as well.
It's the backtracking that really kills the game. The levels are each fun, or at least parts of them are, but other bits are monotonous, and feel like they're just there to make the game longer. Combined with that, you are required to play at least a few levels over again. That's quite the nuisance, as you can imagine. It's not such a bad idea in theory, especially since each level has more than one mission to complete, but it's overused a lot.
Moving the characters around is kind of awkward. They seem to glide for a moment before they start moving, and do the same when they're slowing down. It's a very strange issues, because the Prisoner of Azkaban game had the same issue, yet Chamber of Secrets didn't.
Graphically, the game's so-so. It's nothing amazing or particularly awful. The music again turned out pretty well, but the lack of John Williams is still bothersome. It would add to the ambience in such a game spectacularly.
Since you'll be playing levels over and over again anyway the first time through, there's not much reason to replay the game. However, like with many franchises, fun might be had out of it by playing all the games in the series, playing with friends, and it's most fun if you backtrack as little as possible.
This is definitely one of the better Potter games. Is it spectacular? Certainly not. But it's decent. Is it worth it today? Well no, because it's aged and was only decent when it came out, unless, as ever, you're a diehard Potter fan and absolutely must have every game. And if that's the case, this'll be one of the better ones you'll pick up.
I'm a big Potter fan myself, so I had some fun with the game, but I'm still waiting for the Potter title that truly wows me.