If someone ten years ago was to claim they could foresee the future and that future included a children's book becoming the most money making franchise in history I would have laughed them right out of the room. Well that is exactly what J.K. Rowling's multi-billion dollar bifocal wearing hero has done. The name of the young lad is Harry Potter and as of today he has graced every type of entertainment medium known to man, and a few off the wall products (see lunch boxes, stickers, potential stamps, etc.). Recently the fifth movie in the Harry Potter series, based on the best selling books of the same name, conquered theaters all over the globe and broke a number of records with insane ease. Having a video game release side by side with it's movie counterpart is nothing new; Spider-Man, Superman, TMNT, Transformers, etc. all had games released around the same time as the movie this summer. Developer and publisher Electronic Arts had the privilege to bring Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to consoles this year and it marks the little wizard's first showing on a next-gen console, pretty graphics and all.
While it has always been hard to make a video game based on a movie/book that was both good and original at the same time, Order of the Phoenix does a good job of blending the storyline of the movie/book (that fans will love) with just the right amount of new gameplay to equal out at an overall decent adventure title. All of the big named characters from the movies/books make an appearance in Order of the Phoenix; yes Harry, Ron, and Hermione are all here taking part in their fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The basic premise for the fifth movie/book is that as all the students return to school from their summer break an old nemesis has returned to cause trouble and there is a new teacher (Dark Arts) at Hogwarts that moves Harry and companions into revolution status. As is with this game, the hard part of making a video game based on either a long-ass book or long-ass movie is that the boring parts of either do not translate over into an exciting gaming experience.
For the first time in the Harry Potter gaming the developers seemed to capture the essence of the franchise and actually create a game that is both fun to play and authentic to the movie/book simultaneously. If Rockstar made a sandbox style Harry Potter game, Order of the Phoenix is what I would imagine it to be. The entire Hogwarts School is virtually recreated inch-for-inch in the game, and all areas are fully explore-able and interactive. Because the developers know how to take advantage of the Xbox 360 hardware there are no load times whatsoever when moving between areas in the game. This translates into causing you to really feel as if you are playing through the movie or actually taking part in the world around Harry Potter. Because the storyline will be nothing new for fans of the series I am not going to spend any time delving into who Harry Potter is, who his enemies are, or his life purpose.
EA did do a good job of making this game appeal solely to only hardcore fans, my wife had never read one of the books or seen one of the movies and she was able to follow the premise of the video game and have a fun time playing through it. Overall there are around 50 total tasks for you to complete and they will take up the majority of your time playing the game. Examples of these tasks are: gather up new students, pull off pranks, find missing items, defeat enemies, cause the new teacher to scream, etc. Coupled with the side-quests and other things to do (Quidditch, etc.) you will spend around 15+ hours completing the game. If you have a small case of obsessive compulsive disorder you could easily add another 10 hours onto that to collect, explore, and do everything available in Order of the Phoenix. Hogwarts and it's surroundings are the meat and potatoes and through exploration of the school you will learn new magic (Depulso, Stupefy, Reducto, etc.) and collect new/better items. Once you complete the single player quest this game will likely collect dust on your shelf as there is no multi-player portion and little reason to replay the main quest. The controls are pretty basic and most gamers will have them mastered by the time they finish the first or second task. Thankfully EA opted not to force gamers into a crazy button combination in order to perform magic spells or defeat your enemies.
