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But, eventually you need to get down the business of your actual quests. These are obtained by speaking to students and professors who will give you tasks that are almost always “Go here and find this and bring it back” or simply “Go here and find this”. You can manage tasks and locations via the clever Marauder’s Map map interface, and it saves the game from being unplayable. You select a location on the map, and when you close it, footsteps will appear on the ground in front of you and guide you to your desired location. However, this doesn’t help the fact that Hogwarts, as I said earlier, is huge. Going back and forth all over campus can get tiresome. Even using the portrait shortcuts gets tiresome because every time you approach one and give the password, you have to watch a brief in-game cinematic of the discussion.Repetition is the name of the game here. When you’re on a quest Ron and Hermione have a tendency to repeatedly, every 20 seconds, prompt you to finish that quest. And some quests are just tiresome efforts to extend playtime. During a mission to sabotage Umbrage’s propaganda speakers throughout Hogwarts, Harry helps Padma and Parvati place potion inside the speakers to ruin them. Harry does this once (which only requires him placing one bench on top of another and them climbing them), and then must follow them to four additional locations and do the EXACT same thing. I got it the first time, thanks. Oh, and did I mention that benches have been inserted into these location just for this quest? Yeah. Smooth quest design, guys. Navigating the game is no walk in the park, either. As you have no control over the camera (WASD to move and the mouse to cover spells), the camera does some wonky stuff, as computer controlled cameras are apt to do. This, combined with occasionally poor control in shifting perspectives (I’ve gotten stuck in corners where the game couldn’t seem to decide which direction it wanted my keys to move me in) and the fact that Ron and Hermione will constantly be getting in your damn way, means that wandering all over can be a headache. Though, any time an NPC gets in your way you can, in theory, just use a spell to blast them along. There are a few mini-games tucked into OOTP. Exploding Snap variants and a few versions of a marble game are fun, but take forever to play and make them a bit of an irritant. Fans will be pleased to note that you can play Wizard's Chess, which is fun, though the computer A.I. isn't very robust for the matches. In the end, OOTP is an amusing distraction. It’s great fun to walk around Hogwarts and the spells are easy enough to cast to make them something you can cast all over. However, this does not core gameplay make. The quests and means to advance the game’s plot are plodding and heavy-handed. The game is all style and little substance. It looks good and runs well on my machine, but I also had to copy the ENTIRE DVD to my drive to play the game. DVD takes up 4.28 GB. Game on my HD takes up 4.28 GB. Yet… I’m still required to have the DVD in my drive to play. Why? Beats me. And the game still takes about two full minutes to load, from double clicking the app to actually beginning to play. I’ll finish the game, and I’ll likely try to uncover all the items there are in to find in the game, but it will be more a test of wills than it will be because I delight in playing the game. It’s a matter of endurance at this point, like running a marathon. Can I last through the experience? Or will the gameplay beat me down? Pros • Great scale to Hogwarts
• Casting spells is fun, simple
• Music is excellent
• Good amount of unlockable content and tons of discoveries to makeCons • Insipid, repetitive gameplay
• Awkward navigation and camera work
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