Harry Potter's Zelda-Influenced Philosophy

Thanks to C+VG for their interview discussing the newly announced Harry Potter And The Sorceror's Stone with an EA producer, after this heavily rumored PS2/Xbox/GameCube update of the first book was officially announced last week. The game is summarized as having "..some stealth sections, some flying modes, but probably 80 percent of the time there's this sort of arcade adventure, it's almost Zelda-esque. We're not afraid to admit our influences." So unafraid, in fact, that they mention the Zelda series at least 5 times during the interview. There's already been a glut of Harry Potter games, most of which have been significantly different from one another - which ones have you actually enjoyed?

Comments

Hooray for clones!

[neostorm]

Wait! Next will be the Harry potter RTS!

Oh well, at least they're cloning something *fun*. Hopefully they do it well...

Harry Potter

[13Echo]

My fiance isn't much of a gamer, but she's a big fan of the Harry Potter series. I purchased the Gamecube "Chamber of Secrets" for her, and though it didn't follow the book's storyline to a T, it wasn't a bad game.

She had a bit of trouble with many boss fights and puzzles. The camera was a bit awkward for her. But I've been playing games for 18 years now, so I thought that the game was a bit too easy for me. Regardless, it was still quite fun (even if it can be finished in two or three days of extended play.)

I think that gamers that like 3D platform titles would like it, even if they aren't fans of the series. But the game might be a bit too tough for people that don't normally play games. It could have used a bit more balance, and a bit more work on making the game a bit longer and more in-depth. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Eurocom will be doing this new game. They had a fabulous multi-platform game engine. Maybe Warthog will get the opportunity to improve upon this engine, assuming that it belongs to EA now.

Chamber of Secrets for GC was fun...

[RevAaron]

I'm fairly new to gaming. A bunchamonths back, my roomate- who is a big fan of the Harry Potter junk- rented the GCN version of the Chamber of Secrets. I ended up playing the whole game in a weekend- it was a lot of fun.

This was before I ever played Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. When we got an n64 a couple months after that, as well as Ocarina, I realized how much the HPCoS game was like Zelda, which is a lot! The game was still fun, but used "plot" devices that were kind of lame at times. It'd sure be nice to be able to go back to play Quiddich and Wizzard Dueling after you'd beat the game, though.

Re:The fifth book

[Idlechat]

I didn't exactly understand your last section template (the long one that begins with the word "stick"), but basically I agree with you. The division-by-year might make HP worthless.. or something. I'm so disappointed at Jo Rolling (and I also envy her bf.. I wanted to be with her instead.. ;)

And I think that book 4 sucked. I liked the first 3 books the most.. especially the 2nd, where people were frozen all the time - I could feel the panic pretty well.. book 3 was nice too - maybe because it didn't involve Voldemort?

PS: I can't believe they moded me OFFTOPIC. It's at least 50% on topic!

Re:The fifth book

[Idlechat]

First of all, book 3 was less of a thriller than book 2. Although I liked the ending of it a lot - it was also interesting that we didn't see Voldemort at the end of it.

Now, about the "stick":
[nice build] [enjoyable scene] [good build] [great build] [climax] [stick a huge 7-page block of one person talking to explain everything else because the book is already twice as long as the last book and hasnt yet bothered with those "nice build"s for 90% of the story]

What did you mean in "bothered with those nice build"? The part that confuses me is that you write earlier that all the book is about builds, so what did you mean about the book hasn't bothered with them?

Re:The fifth book

[Lord Bitman]

Ah, what you have is a confusion between "story" and "book"
90% of the book is nice builds about 10% of the story, the rest is a hasty explanation thrown in at the end. Read the 2nd [or 3rd.. not sure..] to last chapter in book 4, it's nothing but one long block of somebody talking under influence of truth-serum for fuck's sake -- it would be cliche if it wasnt so fucking stupid that nobody else has bothered with it.