Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

If Harry Potter took lessons from Rockstar's Bully, Hogwarts could become a great setting with vibrant characters and cool locations. Instead, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince gives you three activities to repeat constantly. Concocting potions and humiliating dark wizards is fun for a while, but once the novelty is gone, Hogwarts loses all of its magic.

Young Harry Potter fans will likely play The Half-Blood Prince and have a good time. The game holds your hand throughout and does a good job at recreating Hogwarts, but anyone with any serious gaming experience will find the whole thing to be too simplistic and at times dull.

The game is ultimately a forgettable experience, pushing players through the same three minigames over and over again, without ever capturing the thrill of being a wizard. The story lacks focus and is difficult to follow, giving players only the faintest motivation to continue on before it finally ends on an emotionless, anticlimactic note. The Half-Blood Prince squanders its impressive license; you're better off reading the book again.

If you know nothing about the story found in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, this game is not the place to start because it glosses over the facts and emotions of the real story. However, if you're looking to pick up your broomstick and take Hogwarts by storm, this title should find its way into your library.

Overall, I can very confidently say that Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is a fun movie tie-in game, and it certainly lives up to what is expected of it. Although it isn’t terribly long or deep, it will give fans of the series some solid gameplay, and it certainly isn’t too challenging for younger fans who might want to play it. The game also has some solid replay value from its multiplayer modes, so if you’re itching to get back into Hogwarts for year 6, then Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is a great vehicle to do so.

The graphics are borderline satire, the voice-acting is atrocious, the gameplay is monotonous, and the storyline isn’t told properly. I’d recommend reading the book or watching the film again before you ever decide to play the game. Let’s cross our fingers that, when the films are finished, EA or any developer can recreate the series faithfully without any nearing deadline of a film’s release.