Source : http://www.wonderdogsoftware.com
Author : Sherry Bunker
Published on : August 03, 2009
|
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Walkthrough Game Guide
It can be debated that the Harry Potter books are probably the greatest novels of this era, with the now overtly famous wizard's presence spilling over into other similar series yet without as much true appreciation. The video games of the movies of the books always lack in details covered now being a copy of a copy of copy. Due to this fact, the actual console system ports have always had a difficult time trying to compare to their on screen and original grand written novel counterparts.
 |
CLICK HERE FOR GAME WALKTHROUGH GUIDE |
Two years ago, I nearly pooped my pants. See, Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix came out on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and it didn't suck -- in fact, it was pretty good. If you're just joining us, that's pretty much unheard of when you're talking about movie-based games. Now, with another H.P. movie bearing down on us, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is coming to your favorite videogame console. Can EA defy movie-to-videogame logic one more time?
The answer is "yes." While it doesn't blow the previous title away by any margin, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince improves on the stuff I liked in its predecessor and makes for a pretty fun game.
Half-Blood Prince does of course continue where the previous game/book/movie had left off. The Order of the Phoenix video game was underappreciated albeit the developers did their best to give a worthy time of gameplay. Nonetheless, the game brought a lot less to the gross intake than expected. They did provide a descent display of the Hogwarts location, but the simplicity of the actual game script without any real forward drive or reason to get to the ending destroyed the entire reason for wanting to play the game in the first place. However, for those ecstatic fans of the novel series, there is still a worthwhile amount of enjoyment that can be derived from any of the titles in the series at least in my opinion. Now introducing the Half-Blood Prince (along with the full game walkthrough here at GameGuideDog.com) this title like the movie is like half of the final story, and I personally believe that is the intention to get the final draw of the series itself, both from the box-office as well as the bookstore and video game shelves.
Trying to remember where the previous story left off can be a bit of a bother, but there are some minor mentions of the titular Half-Blood Prince whose notes dot Harry's potions book, a trip or two through Dumbledore's memory to see the young Tom Riddle, and a quick peek at Harry's ever-growing suspicion of Draco Malfoy. But you'll have to fit these pieces together yourself because the game doesn't spend any time filling in the details. However, you are going to have a time of it trying to put these long ago memories together to recall with the given very short clips/cutscenes in the game anyway. The recording talent used on the latest Half-Blood game release saved their money (or their scheduling conflicts with the original talent) and utilized barely digestible voice alikes.
This potion stuff is pretty interesting. On the one hand, it's just a game of Simon Says, but it's actually quite challenging when you get going. Some of these elixirs have a really small window of success -- you need to pour/shake/stir until the concoction is a certain color -- and you'll need to be on your toes to hit the mark. Add on the fact that there's a timer that's counting down and losing extra seconds every time you screw up (like when you accidentally spill on the table or miss dropping a piece of dung into the pot), and it's going to be hard to pull off a five-star performance. Thankfully, if you do get rated one-star, you can redo a potion as many times as you like, but it's not necessary to progress; you just need to finish it in some respect. Sometimes it can be very difficult to know when you're about to pour or drop something, but the mode is still fun.
Okay, so the graphics, the models themselves are similar enough to their counterparts just like in the other earlier game releases. However, it's obvious the corners on animation were severely cut to save time for things like Hermoine's hair doesn't hardly move, Professor McGonagall is cast in perpetual shadow, and Ron is cursed with a laughably small head. Furthermore, the game's plot takes poetic licenses in completely ridiculous ways that have absolutely nothing to do with any of the books at all.
Now in Order of the Phoenix, the title gave us an actually pretty accurate experience comparable to the film or the book. Like the many hidden alcoves and winding passageways at their leisure. Those of us that have not had the opportunity to play the earlier games can expect a big struggle trying to navigate around the huge map of the school, due to the movie staircases and missing several shortcuts through the portraits on the walls. However, if you HAVE played Phoenix you also don't have much more to learn to get around being as the map is actually identical along with all the secrets as well. If anything tho, it does make things a bit easier to navigate to the new objectives. There also is of course the option to utilize Nearly Headless Nick if you get lost which helps but also causes unnecessary backtracking.
Now having the opportunity to do all this extra running around (with some nifty motion blur to make you dizzy) you can enjoy (or suffer) through three optional wizard like functions. If you've seen the film (spoiler) in Half-Blood Prince, Harry's skills for potion mixing has increased tremendously so you should plan to spend some time learning the interface to utilize the various brewing concoctions. When you mix and combine the rather grotesque ingredients into even more disgusting final potions, it reminds one of those booger or dirt flavoured jelly belly jelly beans (if anyone had the misfortune of buying those when the first Harry Potter's were released.) The game does require several potions be mastered which in itself becomes very cumbersome and well, it's not like we wanted to play a 'cooking show' game now is it? Or maybe you did. Making the potions becomes so intricately repetitive, that it almost makes me fall asleep like I almost did during the actual movie itself.
Of course any Harry Potter game, book, and movie would not be complete without the return to Quidditch, but still not as exciting as in previous versions of the game. All of it is somewhat dumbed down to bring you a final dull product. Since this time you play as a seeker, you have to navigate through starts in the sky kind of like a bad version of Sonic the Hedgehog 3D. Using the left analog control, you move him through the stars and can ignore the rest… how exciting. All this to do while an actual Quidditch game is busy taking place below you. In the book/movie Harry has to deal with obstacles, other angry players trying to dislodge him, but NOOO, not here… just the usual lack of interaction that makes the potion mixing portion seem more entertaining. Ugh.
While it's not really a badge or anything you get to show off, this ability to explore also rewards you with seeing things you never would've if you just played the game strictly by the numbers. Although there's no reason to do it in terms of the game's tale, you can go into the Charms classroom and see Flitwick as well as climb high into the Owlery. Locations such as these don't serve a purpose other than a dose of fan service and I'm all about that.
Obviously, Potter's far from perfect. While the school looks good, you're going to be taken aback by some of the facial animations in this game. When the camera's close up on a talking Ron or Hermione, faces have a tendency to look like creepy robots. On top of that, none of the sound-alikes sound all that good, although the musical score is outstanding and you're going to hear that more than the lame voices. Again, you shouldn't be playing this game to get the movie's story, but these snafus definitely take you out of the experience. Thankfully, the moving staircases (which are much more responsive this time), the Herbology classroom, and so much more are around to keep you in the world of Hogwarts.
If we're looking to fuel the never-ending battle between Xbox 360 fans and PlayStation 3 fans, the Xbox 360 runs better than the PS3, which suffers from slowdown and framerate drops now and again when the action gets really heavy. On the other hand, the camera in both versions will awkwardly stretch Harry and Luna's bodies when they run up the hill at the beginning of the game.
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.
Finally, as if this wasn't enough to make you either return the game altogether, you have to handle the Half-Blood Prince dueling feature or minigame as I call it. This actually turned out to be a bit more enjoyable, but not by much. You have to handle foes one at a time, shooting your spells at them and avoiding theirs. Firing your wand with the analog sticks you control one of six different spells based on how you wave it. If you fire off a perfectly timed pretego, it's kind of cool since you summon the shield at a precise moment which will bounce the enemies spell right back at him. The problem here is that the AI is pretty weak so all you have to do is simply stun your opponent with a decent hit, and then wear him down with some simpler quick attack spells. Like using the levicorpus spell will make him or her suspend in mid-air and you can shoot a bunch of quick easy stupefy shots to reduce their health and win.
The best thing about this minigame is you can actually place against someone else making the unpredictable battle much more rewarding.
Nintendo Wii DS Harry Potter Half Blood Prince Walkthrough Game Guide
The Harry Potter video games should complement the other media, providing gleeful interaction to match the excellent story from the books and the visual splendor of the films. But Half-Blood Prince isn't much fun to play once you've gotten a taste of the few simple activities. 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're interested in this title, chances are that you've already read the books and are awaiting the movie. Still, I'll do my best to summarize what's up this time around: Harry, Ron, and Hermione are back for their sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, everyone's abuzz about the latest happenings in the world of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and Draco is up to no good. Sure, that sounds like every Harry Potter story, but this time things are really bad.
If you've read the books, you know what those bad things are, and if you haven't, this game really isn't going to explain what's going on. See, rather than have you play through the events of the movie, Half-Blood Prince just kind of uses them as touchstones. Sure, you'll participate in the big battles and see videogame cutscenes depicting key moments, but these events won't really be properly explained nor will they carry the appropriate impact. You're not here to play the movie; you're here to live in the movie's universe.
What does that mean? Well, just like last time, you'll pick up the controller and become Harry in a fully realized Hogwarts. If it's in the movies, you can find it in this hallway-for-hallway recreation of the school. When you first start the title, sections of the building will be locked due to the latest You-Know-Who scare, but completing the game's events as they come quickly unlocks the place so that you can run around and do whatever you want -- which breaks down into the categories of making potions, flying, dueling, and exploring.
Making potions is probably the most inventive mini-game in the title and gives you 16 brews to create in your trusty caldron. While most of the game is played from a third-person perspective, potions put you into a first-person mode... with invisible hands. See, icons pop up on the left side of the screen and you choose the corresponding ingredient with your on-screen cursor. You'll grab a beaker, move it to the pot, and pour it in. All of this is done with your controller's joystick (left to select the ingredient and right to move it) and thankfully ignores Sixaxis altogether. As you get deeper into the game's potions, the steps to create concoctions such as Fertilizer and Wiggenweld multiply and become more complicated. You'll need to bring the cauldron to a boil, wave off smoke, make ingredients bubble before adding to the stew, and stir up the contents.
Another nice addition this time around is flight. In Half-Blood Prince, Harry's the captain of the Quidditch team, and as such, you're going to need to log some time on your broom. Rather than give you free reign over the world, flight is very controlled here. You're chasing the snitch and the camera is always heading in whatever direction the gold ball is. This means you're not really controlling where you're going, but you're controlling where on the screen you are -- left, right, up, down.
What keeps this from being boring are star checkpoints throughout the match. You need to fly through these stars so that you keep time in your reservoir. If you miss a couple, the checkpoints will start going from green to red. If you miss a bunch, the red ones will expire and you'll have to restart the level. Basically, this is a timed race more than it is a Quidditch match, but it's still fun. Sadly, these things can go on a bit too long and it's a bitch to try and fit through the Quidditch goals when you have to, but it's still a fun experience overall and it looks good to race through the air and kick at other players trying to knock you off course.
If there's one thing Order of the Phoenix sucked at, it was wand-to-wand combat. There were a ton of spells, but the joysticks weren't that responsive and the battles never felt that fun. Things are better here in Half-Blood Prince, but it's still not perfect. Here, you have six spells -- Stupefy, Protego, Expelliarmus, Petrificus Totalus, Levicorpus, and Charging -- that are performed with the joysticks (and only the joysticks, as the Sixaxis commands aren't around this time). You can move at a normal pace with the stick or leap from side to side by using the triggers.
This system works fine and is head-and-shoulders better than the last scheme we saw, but once you get Levicorpus down, you can pretty much roll any opponent you find by lifting him or her into the air and slamming Stupefy after Stupefy into his or her chest. It looks pretty and trying to score five-stars on the post-match rating will require a bit of planning, but you can just spam your way through these games if you like. An added bonus? You can face off against an in-house friend in head-to-head duels if you like. You choose from characters such as Vincent Crabbe, Ginny Weasley, and all your other favorites and go at it. The matches last longer than the computer battles, but it's more a game of waiting for your opponent to screw up than you outwitting them, so I don't know how much of a draw it will really be.
Also interesting about combat is that this game uses a health bar. Last time around, immersing you in the movie-like experience was the name of the game so there weren't any circles depicting how you were doing -- you had to watch the characters. Personally, I enjoyed that more, but this isn't distracting or anything; it's just a personal preference.
You shouldn't think that EA's backing off immersing you in the Harry Potter world, though. Last time, inky footprints lead you to locations you picked off your map, but now, Nearly Headless Nick will pop up to show you the way to whatever location you're looking for. Also, I enjoyed that area names are now written on walls as you approach rather than the pop-up tile like in Order of the Phoenix. Plus, Harry can run and jump this time around. He's a real boy!
Just like Order of the Phoenix, exploration is a humongous part of this game. The story-related stuff can be polished off in about four or five hours, but there's going to be a lot left to do for Harry Potter nuts or people who are Trophy/Achievement whores (see: me). See, the game has 150 Hogwarts crests hidden throughout the school. Now, 125 of those are stuck on walls, tangled in bushes, and so on, but the other 25 need to be earned. You'll be walking around a hallway, see a lantern or bird with a rainbow-like glow around it, and need to wave your wand at it to get some mini-crests to fall. When you collect these mini-crests, a meter fills. Fill it up and you get a full crest to add to your collection. Aside from making you scour every room, these crests also begin unlocking additional options for you as you amass a collection. Sometimes it's new people to duel with and sometimes it's the ability to create the Love Potion. If crests aren't your thing, there are a ton of badges to earn for cranking out potions quickly, being the best flyboy you can be, and so on.
|
Click here for Our Walkthrough Guide Website: |
Other great new video game walk throughs and strategy game guides available from GAMEGUIDEDOG.COM (A Wonderdog Software Company):
Check out this video GameGuideDog dug up and fetched for ya!
Source & Guide Location: http://news.wonderdogsoftware.com/
BLOG SOURCE: Where to Get ANY Video Game Walkthrough Guide Online
GameGuideDog.Com - The ONLY Video Game Help Website you will EVER need!!
