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Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix

In a week's time, the freight train that is Harry Potter will barrel through U.S. movie theaters for the fifth time with the release of Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix. Excited children and creepy adults alike are preparing their costumes and provisions for the obligatory theater-camping that has become a staple of any big film release. The once-adolescent cast have done a bit of growing up over the years, but audiences haven't grown tired of watching the characters fight the forces of evil with a charming combination of magic and wit.

At least, that's how I envision the plots of the various Harry Potter books. I couldn't really tell you what goes on at Hogwarts, because I've never read one of the books - nor have I seen one of the films (Boo! Shame on you! Boo, I say! - nerd Ed) But like any good money-printing franchise, there's a video game tie-in. I won't be dressing up or even pretending to like the theme, so with that aside, let's take a look at the demo from a gamer's perspective.

Unsurprisingly, the demo is titled Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix too. The 400MB download offers a glimpse of the full game. "Glimpse" is appropriate, because publisher Electronic Arts has coded a hard 10-minute time limit into the demo. Demo or no demo, EA know the Harry Potter faithful will purchase the game but the time limit has no basis in sane marketing practices.

Magic can be used for good or for evil. The latter is often more fun.

Very believable character models all around.

The demo puts you in Harry's shoes at Hogwarts, but the full game promises more playable characters. The world is a bit of a sandbox, with other students and faculty milling about. While all NPCs will at least acknowledge your presence, most will offer little more than a cursory greeting. Those who are more chatty either serve to drive the story or invite you to join in various mini-games - for instance, a chess match or a game of "gobstones" (that's marbles for us muggles). For the record, there are 12 "real" characters to meet in the demo.

What the demo does offer is limited (there are constant reminders to purchase the full version) but the thrust seems to be a main storyline with a number of side quests. The scale is also constricted, but there are a number of menial tasks to complete which introduce the game's gesture-based magic system. Using the wand, gestures are drawn with either the mouse or keyboard (depending on control scheme). The on-screen prompts make learning the gestures easy, but the targeting system could use some work. I was often casting spells on the wrong objects. The horrible camera, which rarely followed Harry and often cut out key characters from in-game cutscenses, can't be controlled. A third-person camera should always give the player some mechanism to adjust, and the snap-to command didn't work indoors when it was most needed.

Cutscenses - sometimes spooky cutscenses - drive the plot.

Teamwork in spellcasting.

The obligatory statistics page.

Maybe I will™ and maybe I won't™

Discovery Points, of which there are a possible 725 in the demo, are a way to keep track of your exploration. Using the Reparo spell to - you guessed it! - repair broken objects will earn discovery points, as will solving puzzles. Moving a chair that was blocking a door to reveal a hidden room is one such puzzle. Being a Potter neophyte, the significance of the ghost escapes me (That's Myrtle, infidel! - agast Ed), but the cutscenes are well-done and use the game engine to drive the story. Even conversing with the talking paintings - which are apparently a staple of Hogwarts - gives Discovery Points. In other words, it's a fancy name for the "Percentage Complete" statistic found in every sandbox game. I assume the full version of the game will track all mini-game stats as well; the demo only tracks gobstones wins (despite an NPC's pleas, I could never mange to play a game of chess).

Page 1: IntroductionPage 2: Graphics and Grouches

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