Return To Home Page		January 8, 2012

Harry, Ron and Hermione in Lego form!

The Lego franchise has been around for quite a while now and has covered some of the most loved movie franchises from Star Wars to Indiana Jones to Pirates of the Caribbean. Next up is the conclusion to the Harry Potter series, covering the last three books and the last four movies. As a fan of the Harry Potter books and movies I was hoping Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 would be right up my (Diagon) alley. Was it? Read on...

The Tri-Wizard tournament is over and Harry has witnessed the return of Lord Voldemort. Not everyone believes him though, chief among the disbelievers being the Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge and one of his co-workers Dolores Umbridge. The Ministry is suspicious of Professor Dumbledore’s support of Harry, believing Dumbledore is jockeying to become the Minister of Magic at Fudge’s expense. In an attempt to minimize Dumbledore’s influence the Ministry sends Dolores Umbridge to Hogwart’s to keep an eye on the students, especially Harry Potter himself. So goes the story of the fifth movie and the opening game in Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7.

The core gameplay of the Lego games hasn’t changed much since the release of the first Lego Star Wars game back in 2005 (and re-released on PS3 in 2007). If you’re new to the series the core gameplay involves blasting everything in sight to collect Lego studs (the in-game currency) and building things out of Lego blocks (by holding down circle) whenever you come across them. There are a few puzzles around the place but these are simple enough that anyone can solve them, making them ideal players of all ages.

Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7, on PS3 now.

Each new franchise brings new characters and therefore new weapons and skills. In Harry Potter the vast majority of characters (all except Muggles) come equipped with a wand and an array of spells. All of your favourites are here including Wingardium Leviosa, Lumos, the Patronus Charm and Aguamenti. Some characters even bring their pets along for the ride so if you’re a Crookshanks fan you won’t be left out in the cold. Some key objects from the movies also make their way into the game including Harry’s invisibility cloak and Ron’s deluminator. All of the above are instrumental in helping you solve the many puzzles in the game.

Most enemies in the game can be dispatched with one or two blasts of a spell, but some few require you to duel them. Dueling is a simple affair; simply step into the marked circle and begin. Once inside the circle the colour of the circle changes to match the spell your opponent is wielding. To beat them you have to choose the same spell and zap them before they zap you. Most of the time this isn’t too hard but in some of the tougher duels it’s neck and neck. The first player to hit their opponent four times wins.

Harry Potter running up the staircase.

Potions also play a role in the game and there are four different concoctions for you to whip up including polyjuice potion. Brewing a potion requires you to find three ingredients nearby, though some are quite well hidden and will require a bit of thought to find them. There is no dialog in Lego games so the story is told through a series of grunts, giggles, shrugs and easily identifiable body language. This means that complex moments have to be broken down into simpler, easily digestable parts. Previous Lego games have been lauded for their ability to not only do this, but to make the moments funny as well. In Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 TT Games has a mixed strike-rate, with some funny moments but also a few where it’s hard to decipher what they’re on about. If you’re familiar with the books or movies you’ll figure it out, but people seeing Harry Potter for the first time are left high and dry a few times.

TT Games have obviously done their homework though, and fans will appreciate seeing Luna’s shoes up a tree at the end of the first game, Ron’s love of food at inappropriate times and Harry’s first sight of Dumbledore’s blackened arm at the beginning of the second game is worth a laugh. They’ve also nailed the memorable bridge-breaking scene that opens the sixth movie.

Might be a gang from Logan... except at least one of them can read!

All of the locations you’ve come to love are recreated here including Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade and the Forbidden Forest. Between levels you’re free to explore Hogwarts to your heart’s content and there is no shortage of stuff to do there. Occasionally you’ll spot a student in a spot of bother and rescuing them will earn you studs and maybe a gold brick, of which there are two-hundred to collect. Hogwarts is huge but your path is marked by friendly ghosts as well as arrows pointing you to your next destination. There are a few shops to pop into on Diagon Alley including Fred and George’s magical joke store. Basically if you remember it from the movies it’s likely to be in the game.

Like previous games in the series this game supports drop-in, drop-out local multiplayer. In single-player you only control one person at a time but you always have at least one AI-controlled companion and that’s who a second player takes control of. You need to stay on the same screen as your partner and that can lead to a few problems (like being dragged off a cliff) but on the whole it works well. There is no online play which is a little surprising considering the game is built for co-op play.

Of course Snape is in Lego form too.

The biggest issue I had with Lego Harry Potter is that the core gameplay hasn’t changed much since the Lego games first burst onto the scene. Running around blasting everything in sight and solving the occasional puzzle is fun in the short-term, but before long the novelty wears off. If you’ve grown tired of this formula during a previous Lego game then nothing here will sway you, whether or not you’re a fan of the Harry Potter books and movies.

The other issues are minor and speak as much for my impatience as they do anything else. First off you can’t save the game yourself, it saves automatically at the end of a level. Not straight after a level – after the first cut-scene of the next level (as I found out to my detriment). Secondly you can’t skip cut-scenes which is something that’s always annoyed me in a game. Another issue is that the vehicles you sometimes get access to get stuck on the environment all too often. Some gaps seem designed just to trap your vehicle – at least they serve no other obvious purpose. Also your AI-controlled partners are no help at all. They don’t shoot when you’re surrounded and sometimes they’ll actually block your progress or knock you off a cliff. Grrr...

Lastly some of the most annoying puzzles aren’t even puzzles at all. Take for example a scene with a bulldozer where you have to dig around for a hidden potion ingredient. When idle both the square and circle buttons make the bulldozer dig, but it turns out that digging with the square button doesn’t actually reveal an object – you have to use circle. How is anyone supposed to know that intuitively? There is a few times where simple things like this cause a few minutes of needless frustration, and that’s something I hate to see.

Some dark, moody Lego Harry Potter 5-7 graphics.

If you’ve played a Lego game before you know what to expect from the visuals. All of the characters are made up of Lego pieces, but their faces make them easy to identify. The environments are similar to what you get in the movies but with a cartoon-style. Not all of the environments are made of Lego which is a good thing. The effects in the game are simple, but they all look ok. The highlight of the game is an early broomstick flight through London and past the Eye of London in all its Lego glory.

Much of the music and sound effects in the game comes directly from the movies which is sure to please Harry Potter fans. The downside to this is the score isn’t that big so you’ll hear some songs over and over, probably to the point of being sick of them. In fairness this is more of an issue in year five than it is later in the game. The sound effects suffer a similar fate; on the one hand it’s great to hear so many sounds we’re familiar with, but on the other some sounds repeat so often you want to mute the game. If I hear Dolores Umbridge’s little giggle one more time I might go insane...

Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 doesn’t deviate much from the structure of previous Lego games which will please fans of the series, but does little to entice newcomers. To get the most out of this game I’d say you have to be a fan of both the Lego games and Harry Potter – if you’re a fan of just one you’re not going to enjoy it a whole lot.

Review By: Mike Allison

GRAPHICS	Typical Lego fare; cartoony and cute but nothing ground-breaking. Flying through London is the highlight.	70%
SOUND	Lots of music and effects from the movies which is a plus. Some of it repeats far too often though.	72%
GAMEPLAY	It hasn’t changed much since Star Wars so you know what to expect. Not as charming or funny as I’d hoped, but kids will likely enjoy it anyway.	65%
VALUE	Takes around 12 hours to finish but there’s a heap to do afterwards.	80%
OVERALL	If you love the Lego franchise and Harry Potter then you’ll get a kick out of this. No-one else is likely to get the same enjoyment however.	70%