HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX (VIDEO GAME)

'''Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix''' is a computer and video game that is based on the fifth installment of the popular ''Harry Potter'' series by J. K. Rowling and the film adaptation, for Game Boy Advance, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360, Wii,^[2] and Mac OS X.^[3] It was released on June 25th in the U.S., June 28th in Australia and June 29th in the UK and Europe for PlayStation 3, PSP, PlayStation 2, Windows and the 3rd of July for most other platforms.^[4]
The theme of the game is to explore Hogwarts and follow the story from the book and movie. EA encouraged fan participation in the development of this game, and worked with a fan council. However, unlike prior games like the action-oriented Goblet of Fire, this time the adventure is in the style of a sandbox game. Similar to the ''Grand Theft Auto'' series and ''Bully'', in that Hogwarts is fully explorable most of the time, and there are "discovery points" that provide rewards to the player, which can be activated by completing side missions. Furthermore, there are battles between group of students, as shown in the game trailer.

Contents

Plot

Features

Missing features

Spells used in the game

Non-combat spells

Combat/duelling spells

Casting spells

Spell strength

Soundtrack

Reception

PC version issues

References

External links

Plot

:''For a complete synopsis see'' Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger return to Hogwarts and discover that much of the wizard community is in denial about Harry's encounter with Lord Voldemort.
At various times during the game, Dumbledore, Fred and George Weasley, and Sirius Black become temporarily playable characters.

Features

85 locations have been included in Hogwarts (combining the movie blueprints, J. K. Rowling's drawings and books together to have a better Hogwarts experience), including important locations such as the Ministry of Magic, Grimmauld Place and Little Whinging.
Hogwarts is completely explorable. The rooms have more secrets than ever & most of them are less obvious than in previous games.
As well as the main missions, and as part of the new sandbox style of playing, players can explore Hogwarts and interact with objects, using magical spells to earn Discovery points.
Earning Discovery points increases the power of the owned spells, and also earns player bonuses, such as behind-the-scenes videos and trophies which can be viewed in the Room of Rewards. Items in the room such as trophies can also be unlocked by taking part in the various minigames, such as Exploding Snap, Wizard chess and Gobstones.
Twenty-two of the characters are voiced by their respective actors and actresses.
There are various missions to complete which follow the storyline of the film, such as the recruiting Dumbledore's Army members, or creating havoc when Umbridge is made Headmistress.
Occlumency is also introduced as a feature of the game.

Missing features

EA said they could not include everything, in particular:

★ The taking of OWL examinations directly; although player will earn OWL grades by lessons - top marks will unlock new rewards.

★ Quidditch and Flying, apart from the section of the game with Fred and George.

★ Changing characters to Ron and Hermione, but the characters Albus Dumbledore, Fred and George, and Sirius Black are playable as the game progresses.

★ A few areas are inaccesable, especially with there not being an option to debug; The Womping Willow is on the Marauder's Map but can't be located, Hufflepuff & Ravenclaw common rooms are nonexistant, Slytherin common room stops abruptly at the bottom of a staircase, Divination class, Griffindor Girls' room, & Hagrid's Hut are unenterable, Dumbledore's office is mentioned, but not present. There are also several locked doors on the Grand Staircase leading to unknown parts of the castle.

Spells used in the game

While in most platforms the spells are performed by only using the direcional and the buttons of the game pad, in the Playstation 3 and Wii it also make use of the special features of the SIXAXIS and the Wii Remote respectively.

Non-combat spells

★ ''Reparo'', a repairing spell.

★ ''Wingardium Leviosa'', used to lift objects.

★ ''Depulso'', used to push away objects.

★ ''Accio'', used to summon objects.

★ ''Reducto'', used to destroy objects.(The Reducto spell can not be used in mission gameplay.)

★ ''Incendio'', used to burn objects.^[5]

Combat/duelling spells

★ ''Expelliarmus'', used to disarm an opponent.

★ ''Stupefy'', a slow, powerful stunning spell.

★ ''Protego'', used to deflect spells coming.

★ ''Rictusempra'', another stunning spell that is faster than ''Stupefy'' but weaker (in the books, ''Rictusempra'' is a tickling spell).

★ ''Petrificus Totalus'', paralyzes the opponent.

★ ''Levicorpus'', used to hang the opponent upside-down.
''Expecto Patronum'' is used in the beginning against the Dementors, and again in a Dumbledore's Army meeting, but it is never used again, thus it has no specific wand movement.

Casting spells

The casting of spells is taught by various other characters to Harry, who practices them first, then is able to use them. In the PC version of the game, different movements of the mouse while pressing either the left or right mouse button allows Harry to cast spells.

Spell strength

During the game, you will earn discovery points by discovering various secrets in the game - when you collect a certain number of discovery points, your spells will become more powerful (ranging from level 1 to 13). As you rise in discovery levels, the following traits are going to affect your spells:

★ Strength - ''Reparo'' repairs objects faster, ''Accio/Depulso'' summons/pushes objects at a greater range, combat spells do more damage etc.

★ Range - Combat spells will fade out and fall to the ground at lower levels, increasing the level increases their range - eventually leading to infinite range.

★ Behavior - ''Stupefy, Rictusempra'' and ''Petrificus Totalus'' gain more spells cast in one casting, some start moving from a straight line to a random track to improve chances of hitting the opponent.
Dumbledore and Voldemort (playable in a mission) have a special level which is not achievable by Harry. ''Stupefy'' and ''Rictusempra'' cast 6 individual spells, ''Petrificus Totalus'' moves in a pattern like ''Rictusempra, Levicorpus'' waddles around, while ''Expelliarmus'' achieves a very large amount of damage.

Soundtrack

The game's soundtrack was composed by James Hannigan and conducted by Allan Wilson. Hannigan wrote themes for the various characters and incorporated "Hedwig's Theme" by John Williams into the score. IGN has given the game's music a rating of 9.5 out of 10.

Reception

The game itself has been received with mixed opinions - although this is not unusual with tie-ins. Most critics seem to prefer the Wii version due to the wand-like Wii Remote controls.

★ ''ONM'' (Wii): 82% (Good)

★ GameTrailers.com (PS3): 8.0

★ 1UP.com (Wii): 8.0 (Good)

★ X-Play (PS3, Wii, Xbox 360): 4 out of 5

★ IGN (Wii): 7.8 (Good)

★ IGN (Xbox 360): 7.6 (Decent)

★ IGN (PS3): 7.6 (Decent)

★ IGN (PC): 7.3 (Decent)

★ IGN (PS2): 7.0 (Decent)

★ IGN (DS): 6.0 (Passable)

★ Gamestyle (Wii) 6.0

★ PSM3 (PS2): 56%

★ PSM3 (PS3): 55%

★ GameSpot (All versions): 5.0 (Mediocre)

★ Gamestyle (Xbox 360) 4.0

★ The Wiire (Wii): C+. The Wiire also awarded the game with the Family Friendly and Ease of Use awards.

★ Game Revolution: C-

PC version issues

Perhaps due to the fact that the PC game is ported from a console based game, the controls are more suited to use of a handheld controller. The PC version game has shipped with a number of issues which have to this date not been addressed with a patch from Electronic Arts.
One issue is related to the use of a handheld controller wereby the game refuses to acknowledge the presence of a gaming controller even when using commonly obtainable units by mainstream manufacturers. A number of workarounds have been put forward in forums but no official remedy has been put forward by EA.
The second issue is related to the game launch wereby the screen in black and music is played and the graphics refuse appear on the screen. EA offers advice on its website for this issue (though not specifically for the Harry Potter game). Their fix is to set your monitor to its lowest resolution and start the game then enter into the settings screen and alter the game's resolution to its highest setting, then exit the game (after saving a game to retain the settings) and reset the monitor to its original settings. Another issue related to screen resolutions is that the game determines what resolution it will run at rather than using the settings of your operating system. This can mean that the resolution of the game may be less than the native resolution of your LCD /Plasma which results in a degradation of picture quality. No fix is stated by EA but the unofficial fix is to alter the files in the game folder which set the screen resolution to be the same as the native resolution of your monitor. The third issue is with Windows Vista, during the installation of the game, the installer states that the "DirectX version must be DirectX 9.0 or higher" and refuses to install.

References

1. "The Apple Store (U.S.) - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by Electronic Arts" - http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=6C04E099&nplm=TN641LL/A - Retrieved on 8/25/2007
2. "EA : Harry Potter : Order of the Phoenix" - http://www.ea.com/harrypotterandtheorderofthephoenix/features.jsp?platform=ps2 - Retrieved on 7/4/2007
3. "EA : Harry Potter : Order of the Phoenix" - http://www.ea.com/article.jsp?id=mac - Retrieved on 7/4/07
4. Release Date
5. Elliot, Harvey (June 5 2007). [1]. Gamespot. Retrieved on (June 21 2007).

External links

★ Official Electronic Arts website

★ Yahoo! ''Harry Potter'' website including exclusive screenshots of the game