A stellar classic built from the ground up to tell the 1-to-1 story of its counterpart movie but in an interactive way with additional storylines on top. Being immersed is what I remembered as a kid playing the Harry Potter games; re-enacting movie scenes through gameplay gave more gravitas to the source material. Even to this present-day, the world of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is both impressive in terms of scale and detail.
Hogwarts can be explored for hours; you can search for collectables such as silver sickles and admire all the weird and quirky spaces, such as the endless stairway with endless paintings of wizards all over the walls. The subtle sombre of winding corridors and unlit areas is captured perfectly; it sets the mood for stealthy gameplay as you try not to get caught and uncover secret passages.
The soundtrack offers ambience and smoothly transitions to match the style of gameplay, whether it be action-filled or stealthy. Mount onto your broomstick, chase the snitch, and make it through all the rings for the highest score. The controls are unsteady and rightfully so, although it only takes a moderate amount of focus not to miss, not how I remembered it as a sweaty-palmed kid feeling ecstatic that I made it through every ring! Every level and minigame comes with a ranked challenge to compete with yourself for the highest score.
Sadly, cutscenes are not skippable so it can be annoying when you need to restart a level. Aside from the relevant cultural references to the Harry Potter movies spread out all around the map, you can also uncover Wizard cards that build upon the lore by giving you background information on Wizards in total!
With the new Harry Potter RPG game in development by Avalanche Studios, the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets PS2 is a good game to revisit to rekindle your connection with the series and get you excited for what lies ahead for the future of Harry Potter in gaming. The Problem with popularity is that everyone ends up hating you. Or, if you prefer your aphorisms slightly shorter, success breeds contempt.
Just look at Man Utd. And so it is with Harry Potter. Had J K Rowling's books been confined to the kiddie's section of the library and the praise for them kept in obscure journals of children's literature no one's heckles would be raised by the sight of the bespectacled, scarfaced chimp.
But when the arrival of a new novel makes headline news, every trend-following moron on public transport has their faces contorted into frowns of concentration over one of the colourful books and you can't go through the check-out till of your local supermarket without knocking over a stall of bloody chocolate broomsticks, the only natural reaction is to start snarling like a rabid dog. Especially when the full force of the next film's marketing campaign rubs your nose into the whole thing and, even worse, your favourite magazine runs a two-page review of the tie-in game.
There are two reasons why the Harry Potter games matter. One is that the books are actually damn good - some of the best escapist fiction available in fact - and the games do a better job of recreating Hogwarts than the films do. The other reason is that decent PC games for kids are inexplicably rare.
Granted, not many seven year-olds will get a Pentium 4 instead of a GameCube for Christmas, but does that mean PC-owning parents should have to settle for Virtual Barbie when they try to introduce their children to computers?
Last year's The Philosopher's Stone was a pleasant surprise for this reason. It was simple, short and aimed squarely at the pubeless population, while managing at the same time to be a well-crafted and entertaining game too. This year's effort is pretty much identical and follows the traditional corporate sequel formula of bigger is better. In theory, this is a good thing, since one of the flaws of last year's title was its shortness.
The problem, as always, is that bigger just isn't enough. It's obvious the developers have had more time to spend on the game with the technology and gameplay core already in place.
So, instead of last year's pathetic drawn sketch opening, we're treated to a proper intro movie following the events from the book and narrated by the brilliant Stephen Fry also responsible for the audio books.
It's only his appropriately enchanting voice that makes the saturation of such cut-scenes throughout the game bearable. The graphics, inevitably, are better, and Hogwarts seems ingredients in exchange for the Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans you collect Pac-Man -like through every level and a new duelling sub-game to add to the Quidditch league. This wizard version of football has also been changed, although hardly improved. While before you had the freedom to fly wherever you wanted in search of the golden snitch, this time you follow it automatically.
The thinking, which has driven much of the redesign, is that this is much easier, and so more tot-friendly. So, while last year's title had a certain simplistic platformgame allure for adults, The Chamber Of Secrets can almost be played one-handed. With your eyes shut. Balancing a watermelon on your head. That's the third heading with the same word. Annoying, isn't it? Just wait until you've heard the damn word times.
You see, the core of the game has Harry running around levels jumping, moving boxes, opening chests and the like but, instead of doing anything as working-class as using his hands, everything is accomplished with a wave of the wand and a magic word Most of the time it's the same word and, when you're surrounded by creatures that need stunning repeatedly, the over-enthusiastic voice starts to echo deep in your brain rather painfully.
Despite the subgames, story breaks and occasional free-roaming, the repetition becomes all the more noticeable thanks to the developer's determination to make this a longer experience. But when Prince sang that there's Joy In Repetition, he wasn't referring to videogames. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! Title 5, Chapters: 1 2. Title 7, Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Title 6, Chapters: 1 2. Title 8, Chapters: 1 2. Title 3, Chapters: 1 2.
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