Unlike the previous Harry Potter games which focused on puzzle solving, Quidditch, and being a terrible game in general, this game’s gonna be different. EA Bright Light VP Head of Production Jonathan Bunney said:
A new technology, eh? Oh boy, I hope it’s nanobots!
For all of you who’ve read the books (and why would you be reading this if you haven’t?), Jonny here has a point: the seventh book was the most action-packed and perhaps darkest of atmosphere, so the video game should follow suit. Only one small problem here, EA – licensed games suck worse than movies based on books. You don’t have to have played all the Harry Potter games on all the systems to see that Metacritic’s highest score for any Harry Potter game was a 77. And although that’s not too bad, all the other games scored much less than this. Why can’t we have a Harry Potter: Azkaban Asylum kind of deal?
In general, making a movie/book-based game enjoyable means a lot of quality gameplay, which will always have to be flushed out from the various scenes in the book or movie. However, by extending action sequences to create more gameplay you always detract from the overall story. Furthermore, licensed games tend to add new story elements as well, which detract from the original vision even further. But to pull back on the gameplay in the hopes of developing a more immersive story will lead to complaints of shortness and lazy game design. A good licensed game always achieves a delicate balance.
With a game that’s being released on all non-magical systems, EA is going to have to give one hell of a romp in order to break the big 80 in Metacritic’s scoring system. Is that even possible with the buffoonery that occurs when developers turn movies into games?
What do you think? Did you buy the other Potters? Are you dead-set on buying this next game? Do you think it’s possible for a Harry Potter game to be that good?
Source: EA.com
