In my review of the videogame for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I asked EA to quit killing their games by concentrating more on getting them out by a certain date rather than focusing on the quality they end up being. I had a little bit of hope that the delay of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince would lead EA to keep working on that movie's videogame. I was hoping they would make the control work better, on integrating story and game better, and do away with the jarring transitions from the last game that kept ripping away the immersion factor.

Well, here we are six months after the initial release date and we are left with probably exactly the same game we would have gotten six months ago. While the initial hour was much better designed that Orders mess of an intro, things quickly devolve into the same trial of 'go here, mix this potion, fight this duel, trigger this cut scene'  that held back the last game from greatness.

Again the main shame of all of this is that EA and their developers obviously spent a great deal of time making an accurate representation of Hogwarts. Somewhere along the way they just simply forgot to add the life and energy to turn this lavish environment into something worth exploring beyond the scope of just making your way to the next mission.

There are crests to find and clubs to join, but none of this really goes far in making you feel like a true member of the Harry Potter universe. Instead you are really just a casual observer with little to no control over the events taking place. The biggest offender is Quidditch, which sounds like an awesome addition until you realize that all you do is fly through rings over the course of a scripted flight path. Boooorrrrriiiinnnggg!

While Hogwarts itself is a site to behold, even if the 360 version simply feels like the Wii version in a better resolution, where the game truly looks butt ass ugly is the character designs. Words cannot begin to describe how awful most of them look.

I did have a bit of fun playing this game... OK maybe 'fun' is not the right word. If I am going to tell the truth, I am enough of a Harry Potter fanboy that even this meager offering of the Potter universe is enough to make me feel like I got my $50 worth out of this game, but I seriously doubt that most will feel the same.

At this point I think the only way we will ever see the epic Harry Potter videogame that could be made, is when the movies have finished releasing and someone can make a game free of sticking so drudgingly close to the movie's script. If a developer took this code, fixed some control issues (really, calling what this game offers 'targeting' is an affront to the word), was given freedom to expand beyond just the key scenes of the books and then took some more queues from the Rockstar game Bully then I think we could have a truly great Harry Potter game. For now all we get is this- a game that is destined to attract only the most loyal of Harry Potter fans. It might be enough for EA to make a profit off of, but surely more effort could have landed them a game that branched out beyond just the Potter faithful... it might have made them oodles of cash as well. It is just too bad that EA does not see things that way.

2/3 stars