When EA came out with Harry Potter™ and the Chamber of Secrets last year, giving the first book in the series a pass, I certainly didn't expect them to go back to retroactively complete the set. However, that's just what they've done, bringing the same EA magic (borrowed a little from Harry) to come up with another great game: Harry Potter™ and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
For those of you not familiar with the Harry Potter series, EA's game titles parallel the series of books about a young English boy, who escapes from a harsh life with his aunt and uncle when he is told that he's a wizard. Though the tales are set in current times, the world of wizards that Harry enters is very ancient in style—Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is located in an enormous castle.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone chronicles Harry's discovery of his magical heritage and his first introduction to Hogwarts. The game doesn't waste any time getting you to the school and skips rapidly along, treating Harry's life with his uncle and aunt as mere prologue. The opening cinemas give you a rapid-fire class in Harry Potter 101, but if you haven't read the books or seen the film, you might not catch everything that flies by.
No matter, though, because it's nice to get right into the thick of things and leap into the Wizardly Arts. First stop: Diagon Alley. At this traditional wizards' shopping district, Harry needs to pick up the necessities of life at Hogwarts: three sets of plain work robes (black), one plain pointed hat (black), The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshank, one cauldron (pewter, standard size), and a wand, of course.
The selection of your wand is left to you, but if you're familiar with the books, you'll be able to go for the right one immediately. Still, it’s fun to try out the others and see the results of an imperfect match between wizard and wand. Once you have your chosen implement, you'll need to learn to use it, and the basic Flipendo spell is the first item on the agenda.
The shopkeeper has a magical target shooting range of sorts (with rotating wheels and moving targets to zap with your wand), so you'll be able to try your hand at it before you're faced with actual obstacles. One nice feature is the ability to assign your own buttons for each spell that you learn. When you pick up a new spell, you'll be asked to enter the button combo that you'd like to use to trigger that spell in the future.
If you explore a little more, you'll find that you can pick up Bertie Bott's Beans lying about ("Vomit flavor!") as well as Wizard Cards. There are more than 100 cards scattered through the game, including such famous faces as Godric Gryffindor and Bertie Bott. As you collect them, the cards will be displayed in your journal on the appropriately numbered page, so you can see where the holes are in your collection.
With the preparations out of the way, it's time to start exploring Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The school is modeled nicely, evoking the aged and lived-in feeling that makes the place seem like an ancient place of learning. It's also enormous. The expansive walls over the staircases are plastered with portraits, as they are in the films, which made me wonder who they got to pose for those. It seems near certain that there are some strange ones up there, if you take time to look, but I didn't get the chance this time around.
Moving about the expansive castle grounds is easy, and the puzzles are set out at a nice pace. The cinematics introduce you to Harry's friends, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, as well as his foe, Draco Malfoy (with obligatory toadies Crabbe and Goyle). As a nice touch, Harry has an "auto jump" feature, meaning you won't be falling to your doom all the time because you're not able to jump at just the right moment. When you move over a gap, Harry leaps across to the other side.
He's a clever lad that way.
For those of you who need a Harry Potter fix to tide you over until the next film or book, grab this little piece of magic, and enjoy Harry's first adventure in a whole new way!
