Product Description

You have got almost the whole of Hogwarts school to explore, with different missions of varying degrees of importance available from different locations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2746 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Released on: 2007-06-28
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: Nintendo DS
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review

‘The boy who lived’ is another movie hero whose video game adventures never seem to have matched up to the quality of his films (or books). Rather than simply repeat the predictable third person action of previous games though, this is something a bit different. It’s almost a sort of Grand Theft Auto: Hogwarts (or a variation on The Simpson’s: Hit & Run for those that are too young to know about Rockstar’s naughty blockbusters).

What this means in practical terms is that you’ve got almost the whole of Hogwarts school to explore from the off, with different missions of varying degrees of importance available from different locations. You now control only Harry, with Hermione or Ron reduced to supporting roles, although there are some short sections where you can play as Fred and George Weasley instead. The re-focus on Harry is a result of the sheer number of magical spells available to him now, from standard offensive and defensive magic to summons and levitation spells that help you uncover and unlock the hidden secret of Hogwarts.

Casting spells isn’t as simple as just pressing a button though, as you’re made to actually trace out a magical symbol using the controller (something that works particularly well on the Wii), which adds greatly to the sense of immersion. There’s also a range of similarly controlled mini-games, including wizard chess and gobstones, which you can play either in or out of the game. It’s all a vast improvement on the previous titles, with similarly superior graphics and a general air of effort not usually associated with film tie-ins.
Harrison Dent

Customer Reviews

Makes a mockery of the HP license...
Just so you know, I also have the ps2 version of this game. I thought it was short, and a bit too easy, but in terms of enjoyment, I really liked it because it was a huge expansive hogwarts that you could explore, with nice music and erm...okay missions.

The ds version of Order of the Phoenix basically takes the ps2 game, and destroys all the the good things about it. For example, instead of a huge 3d world you can explore, you have lame, compressed 2D backgrounds with 3d characters. This might sound okay, but the camera angle changes every five minutes, which makes the already tiresome travelling even more of a pain!

Also, whereas in the ps2 version, hogwarts is populated with hundreds of students who you can talk to, in the ds game the only people you see are neccesary (if you know what I mean.

Another thing I didnt like - instead of just porting the beautiful music scores from the console versions, EA decided to use lame, compressed MIDI music which sounds a bit lame.

At the end of the day, we all know how much effort EA put into making this game have a huge hogwarts, but the DS version just isn't fun. The game conists of running around for ages to get to the next fetch quest, playing some minigames and watching severely compressed cutscene images with almost illegible text... Even a harry potter fan won't appreciate this!

Such a wasted opportunity
I bought the Goblet of Fire DS game a while ago and loved it, so thought I would get the Order of the Phoenix game for more of the same. How wrong I was! It takes some effort to make a Harry Potter game tedious, as there is so much scope for exploring amazing settings, casting spells, battling creatures and enemies and gathering items like beans and chocolate frogs... but they've certainly managed to waste an opportunity here. Whereas the Goblet of Fire game allows to play as Harry, Ron or Hermione, work your way round fun and challenging levels battling dugbogs, salamanders and blast-ended skrewts, collecting Triwizard shields and collector cards etc, and also includes some great little mini-games, the Order of the Phoenix game makes you run endless around Hogwarts to do things like fetch someone's camera for them or talk to Neville in the Herbology greenhouse. Yawn. The spell-casting makes clumsy use of the touchscreen and is way too easy and, as other reviewers have pointed out, the camera angles change constantly and disorientatingly. Get Goblet of Fire instead and give Order of the Phoenix a miss. Or go for the first three PC games, which are great fun.

Very Dissapointing
I brought this game, as I love all the Harry Potter games and thought I would enjoy it on my DS.

Unfortunately, within 7 minutes of playing the game I was bored, and hated the game all together.

The camera angles were terrible and incredibly annoying. You keep losing your sense of direction as it changes whenever you move into a different area. I would have prefered it if the camera angle was behind Harry.

The 'tasks' were just errands which were riddiculously easy and stupid (eg. Find Hermione and speak to her, Find Ron's Prefect badge)

I would not reccommend anyone to buy this game as it is a real waste of money (mainly because of the stupid camera angles).

EA have ruined this game