Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2660 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Released on: 2005-11-11
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: PlayStation2

Amazon.co.uk Preview
Just as the Harry Potter movies seem to be getting better with each sequel, so to the games have been improving with every new release. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire shows every sign of being the best yet with a greater emphasis on playing all the characters and not just Harry.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione are all playable (and they look like the actors from the film too) and each has their own special abilities, strengths and weakness. These can be augmented by collecting and using Collector's and Creature Cards as well, almost like a proper role-playing game.

Perhaps the games greatest draw though, other than much improved graphics, is the co-operative mode which allows you to play all the way through the game with up to two friends joining in. There’ll be no arguments over who gets to be Harry either as everyone has to work together with the most powerful spells only being possible by everyone combining their powers. The spell casting itself works in a different way than before with the analogue controllers being used to move your wand around on screen--you can even feel it shake as the rumble pack of your controller kicks in.

Harry haters still won’t enjoy this on principle, and to be honest it’s neither the most original or difficult game ever made, but for fans of the films and books it looks absolutely wizard. -- Harrison Dent

This preview is based on an incomplete version of the game; features or problems mentioned above may not appear in the finished game.

Manufacturer's Description
Harry, Ron, and Hermione are back! The Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire videogame will release in November in conjunction with the Warner Bros. Pictures film based on J.K. Rowling's fourth book. Experience the thrilling moments of the movie and put your magic to the ultimate test in co-operative play with up to two friends.

In the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire videogame, licensed by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Harry is mysteriously selected as the fourth contestant in the dangerous Triwizard Tournament. Each competitor in the international competition must confront a fire-breathing dragon, rescue friends from the icy depths of the Black Lake, and navigate the twisting mysteries of a vast, dangerous maze. Players can experience the thrills of the movie from the Quidditch World Cup campsite to a heart-stopping duel with Lord Voldemort himself!

Harry, Ron, and Hermione are all playable characters, modeled after their big-screen counterparts. An all-new spell-casting system allows players to really feel the magic for the first time as the controller shakes and reacts with every flick of the wand. Gamers can team up with friends in co-operative play to combine magic and produce more powerful spells than ever before!

Customer Reviews

A disappointment...
In a word Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for the PS2 is a disappointment.
The basic idea of the game is to complete several levels and collect 'shields' to enter the Triwizard Tournaments. You access these levels by a 'pensieve' which works as a menu. Harry, Ron and Hermione go through these levels defeating monsters and collecting beans.
There is no exploring Hogwarts and the Grounds between levels collecting wizard cards and finding secrets. There are no lessons, there is very little story and no side-quests.
The loading screen seems to take forever just to enter a level, when you know you'll have to leave and redo it again ten minutes later to get the shields you missed.
The multi-player is a nice addition, allowing you to play with up to two friends and you can spend beans to buy cards which you equip to your characters to make them stronger. However, playing with friends during the game can be troublesome, particularly when they get stuck around a corner and you have to backtrack to help them out and if you don't play with friends, the AI characters that follow you around do more damage to your progress then help.
Most of the cards you buy have duplicates, so that you might have five Stamina +10 cards for one character, when there are only three slots for equipping cards.
The graphics have improved considerably, which is probably why it takes so long to load, but the overall look is very rushed.
The length of the game is incredibly short, compared to most games and HPCoS and HPPoA for PS2. It is also very easy, which makes the game twice as short as it could be. The end task against Voldemort is finished within minutes, afterwards you see the ending and think, 'Was that it?'.
If you enjoy short and easy, repetitive tasks that you can play with your friends, then this game is for you. If you enjoyed Harry Potter and the PoA, and like lengthy games with lots to do, then avoid this game. Rent or play at a friend's if you want to try it, but you'll find that all you're paying for is graphics if you go and buy it.
Overall I am disappointed with EA for rushing this game so that it was released with the film, which I very much enjoyed.
Hope this review helps.

Very disappointing
OK, let's face it, the two previous Harry Potter games, the Chamber of Secrets and the Prisoner of Azkaban, weren't the best games ever. However, I enjoyed them very much because they were different to most games and, in my opinion, really captured a lot of the atmosphere and magic of the Harry Potter world that has become so beloved since I received the first book for Christmas eight years ago. This instalment, I'm sorry to say, lacks that.
The last two games followed the style of Harry and his friends' school year at Hogwarts, comprised of levels that were in fact school days. Although the whole year only added up to about 6 or 7 days, I thought it was a great idea. On each day you would have different things to do, which were often linked to the plot of the story but were also often lessons where you could learn new spells or extra plot strands that bear no resemblance to anything in the books, but were added to increase the games' lengths. Once you'd finished your lessons, you were free to explore the whole of Hogwarts and its grounds to find secret areas and rewards. Unfortunately, this new game appears to have scrapped all that.
Now, the game comprises of separate levels that are accessed by a main menu, each of which generally consist of Harry, Ron and Hermione fighting magical monsters to find stuff that will unlock the next level. Once you've got to the end, you go back to the menu, but if you haven't got enough rewards, you have to go back and replay the level so you can progress.
The game-makers have called this a 'compelling rewards-system', but I call it a waste of time. This isn't Harry Potter! What ever happened to the lessons and new spells, the Quidditch, the lovely landscapes and design of the castle and the ability to explore and find things and do what you want? How, after two games that, despite some faults, functioned so well as they were, can the game-makers design this that has robbed the story of a great deal of its magic in what feels like just a hasty attempt to accompany the film and make more money?
The game preserves a little of the story's charm; the graphics are fairly good and the Triwizard tasks are quite well thought out, but it does seem such a shame that, having anticipated this game for so long and expected it to be a big improvement to the previous two, it falls short of both of them. It doesn't seem worth the money for what is now a rather flat and 2D game.

Do NOT buy this game
Having bought and enjoyed the first 3 Harry Potter games I was looking forward to the forth installment.I was very disappointed.The camera angles are terrible the controls are fiddley and you can no longer explore Hogwarts and discover its secrets,you just go from level to level with nothing in between.Having bought both the PS2 and the PC versions I was dismayed to find that they are both EXACTLY the same.Unlike the last 3 games where the two formats differed dramatically in terms of gameplay these are carbon copies of each other and,in my opinion neither are worth the money or the time it takes to play them.