It's Harry's 6th year at Hogwarts and he's only got 3 things to do: duel, make potions, and play quidditch.

User Rating: 4.5 | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince PS3
I have been an avid fan of the Harry Potter series, bot the books and the movies. I have, however, not been a big fan of the games. The movies themselves leave a lot of crucial details that help solidify the plot of Harry Potter, and the games only seem to take out even more material. The Harry Potter games over the years haven't been big hits, most games based off movies aren't. There are always certain flaws that are unappealing casual gamers, while also having fillers that keep the Harry Potter fans enjoying the game. In a fair sense, anyone looking to play a good game in general wouldn't normally pick up a Harry Potter game unless they are a fan, especially the 6th continuance of an already complex plot. However, most of these games have been pretty lackluster unless you are a die-hard Harry Potter fan, and this one lives up to it's predecessors.


You play as Harry Potter, the wizard-wiz genius who is famous around Hogwarts, the school for wizards and witches. It is Harry Potter's 6th year at Hogwarts and there is a slew of event to occur. Lord Voldemort is on the lose and it is your job to try and stop him while you are accompanied by your friends Hermione, Ron, and Dumbledore. The game doesn't really focus on the plot of the 6th Harry potter book. Every now and then there is an event which gives away pieces and parts of what is going on in the plot, but if you haven't read the book then you will find yourself using your imagination to assume what's going on. The events unfold in a horrible manner. The way the game played out it seemed as if the game designers made the game but forgot to put important plot events in, so randomly throughout the game events will just occur with no motivation. One second you will be making a potion and the next moment you are being attacked.
There is no game play/CGI distinguishable moments. The game play graphics are the same as the cut-scene graphics. During the cut-scenes, as I said before, characters stiffly walk into the frame with no introduction. Enemies will appear out of thin air and the most versatile occurrence of events will happen after that in no fashion or sequence. Like I said, it seems the developers threw everything in forcefully.
The characters are all designed properly, in a sense. Harry has a lot of detail to his facial appearance, as well as Ron, but the rest of the characters in the game look like horrible cloned zombies of the real actors. Emotionless and stiff, they don't look realistic or move realistic, and look horribly like their acting counter parts at best. This also plays off the games graphics. They are pretty watered down with stiff characters and the lack of fluidity in everything. The only good graphical thing about this game is the environment of Hogwarts itself.
The game features none of the real actor's voices so sound-a-likes took the place. Once again, with Harry and Ron the voice actors sound similar to the real actors, but every other character is laid thick with British/Irish accent that is close to the actual voices.
The voices are unemotional and poor and sometimes the mouths on the characters don't even move. The only way to distinguish the intensity of feelings, vocal-wise, from the voice actors is the volume of their voice. If they are screaming, something bad is happening. If they are talking, then nothing exciting is happening. No pitch change or anything.

The game play is boring at best. You move Harry around Hogwarts with the joystick, move the camera with R2, cast spells with the right joystick, L2 makes Harry run, and the rest of the buttons obsolete. You can't jump and most of the time you feel restricted by the controls.
Throughout the game there are different crests and badges you can collect. Badges are normally obtained by doing certain tasks and normally don't unlock anything. The crests are little shiny Hogwart's crests scattered around the game. These are normally hidden in a bush, hanging from a ceiling, or stuck behind a gate. These are the only collectibles during the game and can often be very hard to get. They unlock bonus material such as extra duels, quidditch matches, extra health while dueling and other bonuses. All of the crests are based around being obtained through spells you learn as the game progresses. The problem with this is that in order to do the certain spells, wingardium leviosa, repairo, etc., you need to flick/rotate the right joystick in a very certain manner. If you do not do it in the exact form and sequence then you will just end up flailing your wand around like an idiot. Most of the time you will find yourself just gyrating the joystick in every direction in hopes that eventually the spell you need will be cast.
There are 150 crests that can be obtained throughout the entire game hidden throughout Hogwarts. A very noticeable thing about the game is the layout of Hogwarts. This game is somewhat of an free-world game like GTA and Infamous, except in the confines of the castle. There are no load times and you can wander around Hogwarts wherever you please after they are opened up by the aurors. Hogwarts looks very pretty and is realistic to it's movie counterpart. Almost every area visitable int he movie is also accessible in the game. I found myself sometimes knowing where to go based on certain landmarks I have seen from the movie. This however is also the games flaw. Hogwarts is massive, and like I said, you can go anywhere. Thus, the chances of you getting lost is very high. Most places look identical to other areas and you can never quite remember which hallway leads to what. This can be extremely annoying if you are looking for certain quests. You'll find yourself running in circles around the castle or not even being able to find a certain location. This is all because there is no HUD map, or map in general. There is , however, Nearly Headless Nick, the house ghost, to help you travel around the school. Simply hit the select button and he will lead you to your destination. He only brings you to landmarks thought so using him to find crests is pretty useless.
Continuing on with game play, the game is broken into three different sections essentially. Making potions, playing quidditch, and dueling. These are the main time wasters that you will be forced to do during the game until plot events come into play. These also become very tedious and repetitive, as you will do many of the repeatedly as part of the main story, side missions, and extra mini-games. Random students will ask you to make them a certain potion or fight off a bully for them via dueling.
You are also graded on all these tasks. I never really understood how they grade you. They give you a sheet with certain number scores you get in areas of Great, Excellent, and 2 certain task specific bonuses such as how fast you made a potion, or most consecutive dueling attacks, as well as how much health you have afterward. You will normally just get random numbers for all these and trying to figure out how you are judged is pointless. You are graded on a star scale of 1 to 5 based off the total amount of points you got in each field (Great, Excellent, etc.). I still see it as purely random as in some instances I would do horrible on making a potion and get 5 stars, while sometimes I would do really good and get 4 or 3.
All these tasks are very repetitive.
In quidditch you simply have to fly through a set amount of rings until you finally catch the snitch. You will have no interference from outside members during the quidditch game also, such as bludgers.
In potion making, you have to add specific ingredients to a cauldron to create a potion. Some of these ingredients require being poured until the liquid in the cauldron changes color, while some require you to heat up the cauldron, stir it, shake potions until they bubble or simply drop ingredients in. There are around 15 different potions you can make and after a while they get frustrating because they get more precise, and since you are timed for this task, precision is the last thing you'll focus on.
The most fun out of the 3 is dueling. This is simply a one-on-one battle in which you fire different spells until the opponent is knocked out. The spells require the movement of the both joysticks and can be hard to pull off sometimes due to precise movement/direction sequence. However, it is satisfying to destroy an opponent in a duel with all your spells. You gradually gain more powerful spells as the game progresses and you will eventually be a pro at this dueling. This is good because throughout the entire game you will randomly have to fight other students for no reason at all. Walking from one class to another? Well, you might have to fight a student in between then. Why? I have no idea.


This games doesn't offer too much and it follows the path of the other Harry Potter games.
I was not exaggerating when I said the game play only consists of quidditch, potions, and dueling. That is all you do the entire game. You have no HUD when you are wandering around Hogwarts, so you can't lose health. The only point is to go from point A to point B, or just explore, and since you can only walk/run this is extremely boring. It's fun to fight see in real life, not in a game. If the developers would have been smart they would have allowed you to free roam with the broom like in Harry Potter 2 and 3.
The game can be beaten in one sitting and after it is finally over there isn't much replay value. You will find most of the crests during the story mode and once you get "free roam" after you beat the game, you wont want to look for the remaining 20 crests you missed. The badges you get from doing certain tasks done inside of a quidditch match, potion making, and duel, so these will not be appealing since their only purpose is to just have them. You can also play more quidditch, make more potions, and duel more people. You will not want to do this thought because you'll be so sick of it all from the actual story mode.
I didn't really expect this game to be great. The only reason I slightly enjoyed it was because I am a Harry Potter fan. Walking through Hogwarts and dueling other wizards was fun for me based on that sole reason.
I wouldn't recommend a non-Harry Potter fan to play this game if they are looking for a good game. There are better games out there and it would take a fan to find enjoyment in this title.