EXCLUSIVES

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Words by Nam-Phuong Nguyen

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, a game blending role-playing and adventure, is the sequel to the game Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and based on the famous children's books. One doesn't need to be familiar with the first game, or even the books, and fans of the series will enjoy being immersed in the world of Harry Potter while they wait for the fifth book to come out in June.

The appeal of the game comes from the books and movies and depends heavily on a player enjoying the immersion in Hogwarts and the story. The atmosphere of the game is its greatest strength, with rooms, layouts, furniture, and design that seem lifted directly from the movies. For those who didn't play the first game, the beginning challenge acts as a tutorial and good design makes play straightforward.

The interface is single-player with mainly a point and click format. Although the default settings involve a two-button mouse, that can be changed in the control panel. Movement, jumping, and spell casting can all be done with a mouse. It is so simple that although Harry learns a variety of spells, the game chooses spells for the player automatically with each specific circumstance. This said, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets would probably not be challenging enough for serious gamers, but perfect for children, occasional players, and fans of all ages.

The game takes place in Hogwarts School of Magic and there is a central storyline that follows the plot of the book with missions that Harry must accomplish. Also, after learning each new spell, the player is taken to a challenge level which involves moving through an area and finding objects while stunning or destroying attackers such as Cornish pixies, prickly pear plants, and fire shooting crabs. Most of the problems involve moving blocks around or cutting planks down in order to facilitate climbing or jumping on them. The challenges are more like playing with puzzle blocks and figuring out how they go together than solving problems related to social interaction. Aside from the central storyline, there are a variety of side events such as playing Quidditch or participating in duels, although even these events are very similar in play to the main game. An interesting departure from point and clicking is that one has to press arrows in sync with a scrolling wand a la Dance, Dance Revolution. Secret rooms abound everywhere in the game, and it is a fun challenge to find them all. Most are not-so-secret looking.

This is the type of game that is fun to play through once, but will not get much play afterwards because the challenges are always the same, and once the storyline is finished, there is no incentive to go back, unless it is to find all the secret rooms.

The best part of the game is the rich environment. It is probably geared towards people who always wanted to go to Hogwarts, but couldn't. Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans are used as currency, and it sounds like the developers got some cast members to do voices for characters like Professor McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Draco. Harry sounds a lot like Ron though. Fans will enjoy seeing Gilderoy Lockhart, who actually is useful in the game and teaches Harry a spell, as well as Dobby and Ginny. Video interludes to move the storyline along abound, as well as video introductions that act as tutorials for every new challenge. As to be expected, for a game that depends so heavily on its environment, the graphics can slow down movement and game play, but setting textures or details lower should solve that problem.

Chamber of Secrets is a nice game to breeze through while enjoying the graphics and environment, while also noticing all the things that are similar and different from the movie. It has a very easy learning curve, and is just challenging enough to keep it from being too easy. Overall it is fun to play, but would have very little playability after completing the game. The real decision over whether or not to buy the game at list price depends on how much you like the books and movies, although as said before, the game can certainly be enjoyable without being familiar with them.

It is rated E for everyone by the ESRB but does have a warning for violence. The system requirements are Mac OS 9.1 or later (9.2.2 recommended) or Mac OSX 10.1 or later, G3/G4 CPU 350 Mhz or faster, 128 MB of RAM plus virtual memory (256MB under OSX), and 3D graphics acceleration (minimum ATI Rage 128 with 16 MB VRAM). More information about Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets can be found at distributor Aspyr Media's website at www.aspyr.com, where it retails for $39.95.