Another of life’s bitter
disappointments: I will never be asked to be a member of Hogwarts’
Quidditch team. Oh sure I caught the Snitch, but it took me over an
hour of gameplay time. Hardly a record! And we’ll not speak of my
feeble spell-casting abilities. Why your average Muggles could cast
a more successful spell of Lumos! Wot’s that? You say you don’t know
what I’m babbling on about? Blimey mate, well if you haven’t by now
‘eard of Harry Potter then I have to question if you are ‘You-Know-Who’
attempting to gain inside information by feigning ignorance!

Harry
Potter, you see, is just the most popular young man in the world.
From his humble beginnings living in a cupboard under his aunt and
uncles’ stairs to the discovery that young Harry is heir to the mantle
of world’s greatest wizard, Harry Potter has for the past three years
dominated the world of children’s literature and is now prepared to
enchant Hollywood and console and computer gaming.

Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer’s Stone is, I daresay, the best game conversion of a
movie or book I have ever played. There is an endless litany of games
developed on the fly meant to take advantage of a hot movie license,
but much time and care has been taken to ensure that not only does
Sorcerer’s Stone follow the plot of the movie but also the
spirit of exploration and discovery. To answer the question most of
you are wondering – no, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
is not an adventure game in the purest sense of the term. There are
no inventory items to be used to solve puzzles and the only point-and-clicking
involved is when using your wand to cast a spell. There is though
plenty of ‘adventuring’ as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
must be searched from top to bottom for secret passages and clues
to solve the mystery. So is it an action game then? Not really even
though there are jumping puzzles, spell casting and sequences that
involve racing your Nimbus 2000 against Draco Malfoy. Maybe it is
a sports game since you must master the Quidditch position of Seeker
and hunt down the Golden Snitch. Nope – sorry. Instead, Harry Potter
and the Sorcerer’s Stone is a conglomeration of all of these genres
meant to encourage the player to experience all aspects of not only
the differently styles of games but more so to have the player experience
what it must be like to actually be Harry Potter for a day.

To
be Harry though the gamer must learn to cast spells, fly a broomstick
and jump across chasms that at first appear unreachable. What could
have been a convoluted control system has instead been amazingly simplified.

Magic spells are learned
by following a letter pattern on your monitor with the tail of your
mouse pointer (probably my least favorite part of the game); casting
the spell is as simple as left-clicking your mouse towards the designated
object and don’t worry about choosing the appropriate spell as the
game will make the choice. Even the most treacherous jumps very rarely
lead to disaster and if you don’t trust your hand/eye coordination
to make the leap, there is an auto-jump feature. Flying your Nimbus
2000 simply requires using the keyboard’s four arrow keys and a booster
key to kick you into warp speed.

Right about now I hear
all of you hardcore gamers out there going, “ewwwww…,”
but guess what, this game wasn’t made for you. Sorcerer’s Stone
was not designed to challenge your reflexes and puzzle skills for
days on end, it is though designed to provide instant gratification
for a deed well done and most often the reward is a cut-scene from
the movie/book that advances the storyline. This is a game that is
intended to be finished and enjoyed, unlike most games that remain
unbeaten, collecting dust in a closet. After all if you are going
to place the gamer in a familiar setting then why not let them reap
the fruits of their labor much as they would from watching a movie
or reading a book?

The 3D graphics are splendid
and it appears as though the faces of the actors from the movie have
been roto-scoped
onto their computer animated bodies. Their mouths do not move, which
is a tad disconcerting at times, but all of the voice actors are so
excellent that I wondered if the actors from the movie had been used
even though I could not find any evidence of this in the instruction
booklet (though I would like to provide more concrete information
here, I cannot as Electronic Arts refuses to provide us with a press
kit for the game). What is most important though is that this magical
world of Harry Potter looks just as you have imagined it. Nor have
the small touches that livened-up the book been ignored: helmeted
heads of armor will turn to watch your progress crossing a room, chocolate
frogs hide in waiting to provide an energy boost and winding corridors
don’t always lead in the same direction as they did originally. There
is also the added incentive of collecting House Points for Gryffindor
when you complete certain assignments and for Harry’s personal collection,
Famous Witches and Wizards Cards are concealed throughout Hogwart.

About a quarter of the
way into the game, there is a flying broomstick chase through the
grounds of Hogwart that is the equivalent of a similar chase scene
from The Empire Strikes Back and as if that were not recommendation
enough, the music swells at the appropriate times much as would any
John Williams score. It took me numerous attempts to get through this
area not because it was too difficult, but because it was just so
invigorating guiding the Nimbus 2000 as I was in full control and
enjoying the ride. And this overwhelming sense
of actually being part of the game continues throughout – fun and
the feeling that the player is Harry always take precedence over staid
gaming standards that have ruined many a game.

Everyone’s here waiting
to greet you: Hagrid, Hermione, Dumbledore and, unfortunately, even
Draco and his sidekicks Crabbe and Goyle. So grab your Cloak of Invisibility
and let yourself be swept away by a game that is as magical to play
as was the book to read.

Final Grade – A

System Requirements:

Win 98/00/ME/XP
266 Mhz Pentium 1
64MB RAM
4x CD/DVD-ROM
500 MB Hard Disk Space
8MB Video Card
Sound Card
Keyboard
Mouse
Direct X 8.0