Widely known and a worldwide sensation, that is how you could describe Harry Potter. To milk the success of the franchise a couple of games have been produced. We will review two of them.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

The first thing you will notice while playing this game is that the graphics are pretty good. But you will quickly ask yourself if the game play is equally impressive.

You will also be pleasantly surprised that the in-game cut scenes look good. But the voice acting is not of the high quality as the graphics.

To keep the game from being absolutely boring there are about sixteen potions that you can learn. This will keep you busy for an extended amount of time.

If you are playing the game because you are interested in the story, you are really crazy and will be disappointed.

The Nintendo Wii has the best version of this game. It has come out on many of the consoles and even on the handhelds.

To add more fun to the game the developers added crests that you can collect. This is optional as you can finish the game without collecting any of them.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

If you like to explore, solve puzzles, and like to battle, then this game will be a fun game to pass the time. There are about eight magic spells you need to learn in order to progress through the game.

The developers could have spend some time on improving the graphics and the voice acting in the cut scenes. Because those have been done so badly it takes away from the overall game.

Nobody plays these games for the story. If you want to know about the story, then you should watch the movie.

What makes the game truly enjoyable to play are the controls. The game plays really similar to the Zelda games. This is great, because those controls where smooth and easy to get into for the players.

We just reviewed two of the most enjoyable Harry Potter games, they offer a great experience and are fun to play.

Everybody knows that Harry Potter has been written by J. K. Rowling and that the books have been made into movies. After the movies came out and took the world by storm other things followed.

Video games based on the movie have come out and are a pretty good depiction of the Harry Potter universe. But most of these games are a bit of a dissapointment.

Lets look at some of these mediocre Harry Potter games.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

If you love exploring and solving puzzles, then you are going to enjoy this game. There are also spells that you need to learn in order to finish the game. If you have watched the movie then you already know what to expect from the story.

The graphics of the game are pretty bland but good enough. The music is entertaining and draws you into the game.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

This game is very linear and for a very strange reason the cut scenes are in black and white. You are able to run and jump while you are out exploring. And you can use spells while battling or solving puzzles.

There are classroom sessions that will teach you new spells to use in the platforming sections. These platforming parts are based on quests where you have to collect items or complete tasks.

The graphics of the game get the job done, but the cut scenes are not that great.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

The developers have all the tools and data to make a great game. They could have drawn more inspiration from the movie, but they did a okay job on this game. If they had more time they could have made it more fun.

The gameplay and controls of this game is clumsy and sluggish. They could have spent more time fine tuning and tweaking the controls to make it easier to explore the Harry Potter world.

What is good about the game play is the spells that you obtain and use throughout the game. It is very fun when you get a new spell and see the various ways in how you are able to use it.

If the developers spend more time on the games they could have been a lot more fun.

Everybody knows that Harry Potter has been written by J. K. Rowling and that the books have been made into movies. After the movies came out and took the world by storm other things followed.

Video games based on the movie have come out and are a pretty good depiction of the Harry Potter universe. But most of these games are a bit of a dissapointment.

Lets take a brief look at these Harry Potter games.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

The games of course is based on the movie, but there are a couple of slight changes. Nothing that alters the main story too much, though. The biggest part of the game is about exploring. This can be quite boring and repetitive.

Graphics of the game are nothing spectacular but they are easy on the eyes. The sound effects and the music also get the job done.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

This game is very linear and for a very strange reason the cut scenes are in black and white. You are able to run and jump while you are out exploring. And you can use spells while battling or solving puzzles.

The game contains classroom sessions where you have to complete the task to learn a new spell. These spells are very handy and mandatory to get the job done.

The graphics of the games are pretty good, but the cut scenes are mediocre.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Taking its story and level design from the game, you would think that the developers would have enough experience under their belt to finally bring a Harry Potter classic game. But this is not been accomplished.

One thing the game developers could have done is tightening up the controls. Nothing is worse then playing a long game with horrible game play and controls. The most horrible function is the lock on mode.

What is good about the game play is the spells that you obtain and use throughout the game. It is very fun when you get a new spell and see the various ways in how you are able to use it.

If the developers spend more time on the games they could have been a lot more fun.

You might be asking yourself why there are different cover versions and different versions of the book in the US and the UK. The reason is simple. Even though it is english, there are differences in the way different countries speak english. It is just to make it easier for the reader to immerse themselves in the book.

For example The Philospher’s Stone was changed to the Sorcerer’s Stone for because it is a much more appealing title for US readers and when it is more appealling it sells more.
Because there are a couple of spelling differences it is absolutelly necessary to have different versions. It would be a major distraction if you are reading and come accross words you do not use or have never heard of.

When it comes to the different covers, the more there are, the more collectors have to buy.

It gets really annoying when people discuss Harry Potter Books without a spoiler warning, or other people who say things that are untrue. On different forums on the internet people have been saying that (Spoiler) Dumbledore died and Harry Potter defeated Voldemort.

This makes it hard to enjoy the book, if people give away the big secrets. So what can you do?

You should try to read the books as quickly as possible when they come out. This will save you from the annoing people who spoil everything. Another thing you should do is stay away from Harry Potter websites. You know for a fact that people will be discussing the books and the movies. They will talk about things that you might not know yet.

If you have this problem in real life, you should act like you do not care and do not read the books. The spoilers will start to ignore you and you can find all the secrets on your own, by reading the books.

Keep in mind that the Harry Potter universe is fast and detailed. So there are always things that you will find out by yourself.

If you are looking to get in to the world of Harry Potter by starting with picture books, you might be up for dissapointment. Plenty of parents want to read the story to their children and show them nice pictures of the world Harry Potter lives in.

The problem is that these picture books do not exist and it does not look like they ever will. Keep in mind that Harry Potter was made for older readers and teenagers. It was also to inspire younger kids to start reading. One solution might be just to go ahead and watch the movies. The movies do excellent work in bringing the book to life. Far better than a picture in a book ever could.

Another idea to try is to visit different fan pages that have images and pictures. Print these out and keep them with you while reading the from the book. You can use the images as references, while reading the book.

Harry Potter is about the life of a lonely orphan who, on his eleventh birthday, learns he is a wizard. The stepparents he lives with treat him badly. After he learns that he is a wizard he packed his bags to attend school. This is not any old random school. He attends Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to learn magic.

Under the guidance of the one of the headmaster Albus Dumbledore, Harry discovers that he is already famous throughout the wizarding world, and that his fate is tied with that of Lord Voldemort. Lord Voldemort killed Harry’s parents and put a scar on his forehead.

At school Harry quickly makes some friends, which is good, because he was a lonely child. But he also has some rivals that will pester him throughout his whole stay at the school.

The Harry Potter franchise is huge. It first started when J.K. Rowling wrote the books. There are seven total. The books are so famous with the younger and older crowd that they where turned into movies.

The books are jam packed with information and nice tidbits, something that is hard to translate into a movie, but it is not a problem. The directors have done a great job of capturing the wizard world and keeping the main story intact for the movies.

The movies are very succesful, because they do an excellent job of portraying the wizard world on screen. It feels like a real place.

You can bet that the Harry Potter franchise will not go away any time soon.