Harry Potter and the Order of the Wiinix!

So like I said in this post, we just recently purchased a Nintendo Wii. And while a new game console almost always results in blog abandonment, I’m making a compromise. I have decided to simply blog about some of the Wii games I’ve finished playing. Also yes, I have ran out of things to blog. Again.

So Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on the Wii. Be able to cast spells by waving your Wiimote around like a magic wand and explore Hogwarts in its entirety. Basically those two are the only reasons for playing this game at all. If only this game didn’t cost $40.00 then that would have been fine.

Because honestly, being able to explore the entire Hogwarts grounds (something that wasn’t possible in the previous games of the franchise) is pretty awesome. You get to walk down the Grand Staircase. Interact with the various paintings. Take your O.W.L.s. Participate in the various mini games scattered around the school (Wizard’s Chess, Exploding Snap, and another game I never bothered to play). Add the fact that the load times are practically insignificant, then you can consider that couple of hours you need to kill deader than Rock Star Supernova‘s career.

But that’s just the thing. If a game that can be finished in no less than 8 hours can only hold your attention for an hour and a half, then you’ve got problems. You see, once you’ve gotten your fill of exploring the school grounds, you can then embark upon your quest to stave off Voldemort’s advances despite telling him that he’s not your type. And by “embark upon your quest,” I actually mean “play errand boy to everybody and their mother in Hogwarts for the entirety of the game.” Seriously.

If you’re not helping somebody get their camera from the roof, you’re running around Hogwarts looking for a book or a shoe or a newspaper for one of the NPCs in the game. It sounds like I’m exaggerating but I’m not. And there’s hardly any variety in solving the quests either. More often then not, casting Wingardium Leviosa, and Reducto are enough to finish any given quest at any given time.

You also learn combat spells like Expelliarmus, and Stupefy, but you hardly get to use them since there are no more than 3 or 4 duels in the game. If and when you do defeat the final battle, the game refuses to award you with a “THE END” until after you’ve finished all the “optional quests” in the game. Thereby supporting my theory that the ultimate goal of the game is to simply run around Hogwarts and perform errands for everybody there.

Next time, I review Avatar: The Burning Earth, and Spiderman: Friend or Foe.