Review: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

There's a mantra almost as old as the video game industry itself:

"Licensed games are never good."

And while there are certainly exceptions to the rule, games based on movies are generally built very quickly to coincide with the release of the film. Quality, story and ingenuity are at the bottom of the priority list when it comes to games like this. Kids will buy them because they just saw the movie and they are psyched about it. Once they pay their $60, it doesn't matter how good the game is. The publisher made their money.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has too many faults for it to excluded from the list of "rushed to market" licensed games. That being said, the team behind this one put at least a little heart into the final product.

Story
This is one of the games shortcomings. If you read the book, or saw the movie, or both - you will be extremely let down by the way this game's story progresses. For a game whose title alone infers mystery and wonder, there are maybe four missions associated with the chamber of secrets - including the final battle in the chamber. The rest of the game focuses on meandering around the castle, going to class, fetch quests and other drab tasks that suck the pacing out the window.

Additionally, the way the story is delivered is so haphazard and inconsistent that you feel like this project was completed by three completely separate teams that didn't talk to each other. Sometimes the story is delivered through cutscenes with atrocious writing and acting. Sometimes the camera stays locked in one spot while a portion of the (admittedly great) audio book plays. Sometimes you're given no story at all even though you're expecting something.

Yeah, me either. This story blows.

After the final battle, you won't feel like you accomplished much. There is no build up and no real motivation from the story that pushes you forward. The recognizable movie elements were so neutered and coated with candy that they didn't even make sense. For the most part it's a series of random tasks that just happen to include some mysterious chamber, that may or may not contain a secret or two.

Gameplay/Design
OK - while this isn't saying much, the gameplay and design were the game's strongest assets. As is the case with many licensed games, the developers took an existing, successful formula and slapped the the treatment over it. In the case of HPatCoS the borrowed formula was Zelda, but they did manage to give the game it's own distinct feel as well.

Assignable Buttons

 The most obvious Zelda element is the assignable buttons. As you progress through your game, Harry will discover new spells like Incendio (fire spell), Exelliarmus (reflect spell - not a disarming spell), Avifors (transforming spell), Scurge (de-gooify spell) and so on. Each of these can be assigned to a one of the face buttons like you would assign your items and gadgets in Zelda. The other big Zelda element is the target lock on - pressing and holding R1 will lock the camera onto your enemy and direct your spell at that target. This is fairly clunky in implementation though as you already have to be facing the target to lock onto it, which effectively eliminates the need for it altogether.

The majority game is broken down into three distinct segments: Classroom dungeouns, castle exploration, and Quiddich matches.

The classroom dungeons are similar to the temples in Zelda, though much shorter and less involved. Each of the four could be bested in about 30 minutes. At the heart of each dungeon was a book that awarded you a new spell, sometimes you got to use this spell to escape from the dungeon and fight a boss, sometimes you didn't. And really, I would have preferred the game to have no bosses, or any fighting at all for that matter.

The exploration aspect of the game was so joyous that the fighting just seemed to be a roadblock to getting back to sneaking around the castle and finding hidden magical items. The most common find is one of the 101 Witches and Wizard collectible trading cards. For every 10 you found, your health meter would expand a bit kinda like the heart pieces in - say it with me - Zelda. You could also trade these cards with other Hogwarts kids, but that aspect felt pretty unnecessary.

There were little nooks and crannies hidden all over the castle and looking for and eventually finding them was one of my favorite parts of the game. If you do your exploring at night though, things become a little more difficult.

The game is broken into 6 days and 6 nights. During the day you do your classes and Quiddich and stuff, and at night you do the rebellious stuff. Sneaking into the restricted section of the library, taking polyjuice potion and turning into Doyle to get the skinny on Malfoy, sneaking out to Hagrid's hut and other various bouts of mischief. However these cooler tasks come with greater risk. There are hall monitors roaming the halls of the castle and if you're caught by one, they deduct five house points from Gryffindor, and you're sent back to the start of the room. All this sneaky stuff is cool in theory, but really difficult and frustrating in execution. You didn't have much control over the camera, nor did you have a radar screen like you would in Metal Gear - so trying to figure out where the hall monitors were and which way they were facing was really difficult, and I would often just blindly get through the room on a trial and error attempt.

There is one more method of exploration - by broomstick. About 1/4 of the way into the game you're given access to your Nimbus 2000 and from there you can fly around the entirety of the exterior of Hogwarts Castle. This was by far the best part of the game - and while there really wasn't much to find outside, the design team just nailed the broom controls to make it such a fun thing to do. Every time I found myself outside for a mission, I would always hop on my broom and take a ride around the castle. But exploring isn't the only thing you can do on broomback - flying practice and Quiddich are also available, but not nearly as fun.

Ever play Superman 64? Remember flying through rings? Yeah - that's what Quiddich is. You fly through rings and try to catch the snitch. You don't have the option to play any other positions, which is kind of a let down, but it's still a nice addition to the game.

One more thing I have to mention, and this is my biggest gripe about the game: load times. They are atrocious. While the interior of Hogwarts is pretty large and complex, it shouldn't take a full 20 seconds to load every time you open a door. My final playtime was about six hours and I would venture a guess that probably a solid hour was that was spent waiting in loading screens. Unbelievable.

 Come on...come on!!

If the loading times weren't there, or even if they were cut in half, it would bring the game up a full letter grade for me. All the elements of a solid game are there, and the broomstick flying is one of my most memorable experiences in the adventure so far. But the load times just choked all the fun out of the experience.

Presentation
All things considering, the game looks pretty good for something that was rushed to market in 2002. Hogwarts Castle is modeled very well, the kids look like the kids from the movie and the spells and special effects animate the way they're supposed to. On the other hand there were what I call "herky jerky" moments in the presentation - especially during cutscenes. There never seemed to be a proper conclusion to a scene and they all just kinda chopped themselves off at the end. Even the final scene of the game ended abruptly and awkwardly shoved me back to the main menu.

The sound design is pretty atrocious overall. They didn't license the wonderful music from the HP movies and while the music was OK, it was a disapointment to not have the main Harry theme. The voice acting is really where the sound showed its diseased underbelly. Again, not getting any actors from the films, the stand-in cast had no business acting anywhere at any time. Once in a while, when you were involved in a lighthearted mission, the acting didn't stand out as bad, but as soon as there was any gravity to the situation, the acting stuck out like a sore thumb. There was no range of emotion in any of the voices - the actor playing Ron would deliver these two lines with the same exact jolly tone:

"Hi Harry! Let's go to the Quiddich stadium for your match against Slytherin"
"Harry! You were almost eaten alive in the Chamber of Secrets! Thanks for saving Ginny, my sister, by the way!"

Decent graphics, but the voice acting and music brought the presentation way down.

Stuff I Liked:

• Castle exploration
• Broom flying
• Zelda elements

Stuff I Hated

• Atrocious voice acting/writing
• Clumsy battle controls
• LOAD TIMES! 

Just as I predicted, in the end the game was "edible". I didn't throw up as soon as it touched my tongue, but I didn't say "Oh man! Call the chef over! I need to give him a tip!" There were good elements, there were terrible elements. This spirited attempt at making a fun licensed game fell just a bit short.

Review in Ten Words or Less:
Play it only if you get it for free