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Preview  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- By Lander Clinton


The latest Harry Potter game from EA is being worked-on by the same chaps who made Prisoner of Azkaban.

The good news? School's out. The bad? Work is too.

Harry and friends still get to go on an adventure and this time you don't have to go to class, but the game needs a lot of work before it comes out. Running felt awkward. They need better animation for running and the ability to turn more accurately. I played a level where you run through a forrest clearing rocks and trees from your path with your spells, but once you lift the rock into the air, it's a struggle to get it to go where you want. I wanted to toss it to the side, but moving the rock and letting go of the spell button simply makes it fall straight down. You can't run and carry a levitating object with you now, but EA said you would be able to later in the game.

Another time, Harry and co. were attacked by a bunch of critters. Sure, I could just shoot at them with sparkly sparkles, but the EA representative suggested I use a spell to lift them into the air, and then throw them off a cliff. The cliff was off-camera towards me, and since you can't move while levitating something, I had to move the creature towards the camera and let go, then run after it and do the same thing until I was close to the cliff. Meanwhile, other creatures were attacking my friends, and maneuvering things in the air is difficult any way.

In another level I was flying on rails around Hogwarts to escape a dragon. I didn't get why it needed to be on rails. They've recreated the entire castle, and in Chamber of Secrets you could fly anywhere you wanted around it. If I stay in one area the dragon should eat me, let me worry about that. Putting the scene on rails made it more cinematic, since scripted events would happen. The dragon would be gone for a bit and then crash through a wall in front of me, etc. But with pre-scripted events, the level seemed to stop for no reason. It's not like I put a spell on the dragon to leave me alone, or flew through a small crevice and then it crashed behind me. The level just stopped when I reached the end of the course and had flown through all the rings (oh yeah, not only is it on rails, but then they give you rings to fly through to suggest which path to take within the confines of the rails).

The game doesn't come out until November when the movie hits. Let's hope some of these problems are worked out.

- 5.18.2005