Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (NDS)

Who would have thought being a wizard would be so dull? You are the last hope against the evil "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named", with a skill and understanding of magic that has not been seen for years, and you are reduced to running errands and performing menial tasks for your lazy class mates. If you're lucky, you might be able to take a few minutes out of your general dogsbody duties to play a game of snap or marbles, but to be fair, you'll probably prefer fetching broomsticks and party outfits than subjecting yourself to those pastimes.
 
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is released just in time to cash in on coincide with the launch of the next blockbusting instalment of the Harry Potter films. With the film itself being a condensed version of the 600 page book, the game follows the plot as best it can. Gamestyle wonders if it was actually worth it, however, as it seems secondary to the mini-games and fetch-quests that will occupy the majority of your time in the Half-Blood Prince. The story is only really touched upon, and only serves as an excuse to enable Harry to traverse back and forth across the grounds of Hogwarts, collecting items to swap with his friends. You'll soon become adept at trading on the magical black market, trying to get your fix of Gobstones, Wizard Cards, and Stink Pellets. Your classmates don't give you anything for free, it seems, so if they have an item that's required to move the story on, you'll be told what they want for it and have to go off and find it.   
 
This wouldn't be such a bad experience if making your way around the famed School for Witchcraft and Wizardry wasn't so painful. The game adopts an isometric view, and Harry can be controlled by either the D-Pad or the stylus. Neither control scheme works particularly better than the other, but as you use the stylus to talk to people, access menus, and cast spells, it's the most convenient method. Both controls schemes are as inaccurate as the other, however, and this lack of precision means that simple tasks, such as walking through doors or up staircases, can be fiddly. This seems to be a common theme throughout the game, and Gamestyle found it took several taps to talk to people, or casts spells correctly. Casting the correct spell on a specific object releases items, but on the odd occasion they'll fall into a dead zone on the screen which means that Harry can't actually pick them up.
 
The mini-games don't suffer from this inaccuracy, but vary in their quality. They are all quite basic, as Half-Blood Prince is obviously aimed at a younger audience (although the game does carry a 12+ rating), but some offer little challenge, whilst others are extremely frustrating. The Quidditch game, for example, almost brought about the demise of Gamestyle's DS, as it was seconds away from being flung against a wall in desperation of the poor collision detection. The duelling game is better than most, but success takes little skill, and frantic screen tapping will usually result in victory. There are no innovative uses of the touch-screen, save for creating potions, which is one of the more entertaining aspects of the game.
 
The graphics in Half-Blood Prince, are particularly poor, especially the menus and map screen, which would be an embarrassment on the Game Boy Advance. Hogwarts is bland and repetitive, which makes walking around the vast number of halls and stairways that much more grating. Even when his tasks take Harry outside, he's greeted with the greys and dark greens of rocks and trees. The limited range of spells you can cast don't do much to brighten up the corridors, and look more like clouds of dust than mysterious magic. The mini-games are vibrant enough, and luckily these can be played directly from the start menu, saving you the trouble of trudging around Hogwarts to find them.
 
With a tight release schedule, developing a game based on a movie will inevitably involve a degree of compromise, but creating a game that feels unfinished and distinctly rushed isn't acceptable. Fans of the books won't be captivated by the endless roaming that appears to have replaced the story, and the mini-games won't keep you amused for long. Harry Potter fans should be warned: this game's a Howler.

Rating: 3 / 10

Words by Chris Thornton