Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Preview

The Harry Potter franchise is a money pit for every one who gets involved with it. As the release of Harry potter series latest book breaks new records in terms of sales, developers EA are almost done with the latest installment of the Harry potter game series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which showcases the journey of Harry Potter in his fourth year at Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. The first four games based on Harry Potter books focused on exploration and puzzle solving, this latest adventure is more action-oriented, keeping in mind the Triwizard tournament occurring in the book which is used in the storyline of the game to a major extent.
The magic begins

EA realized that as the players were growing along with Harry, they wanted the game to take on a darker and mysterious tone like the movies. The players wanted a more interactive world, moreover they should have control over various types of magic, and the magic spells should looks more realistic and not like symbols shooting out of the wands as in the previous titles. The world has both day and night scenes and Hogwarts are completely different than as shown in the previous games. You can choose between one of the three main characters. All the three characters are involved in each level at one point or the other, and as you control one character the other two are controlled by the AI, so if you can get some friends along and play the game in a cooperative mode your friends can play as the other characters of the game; however the mode is limited to only 3 players max. Even though the game is more action oriented than its predecessors, you still need to cooperate with the other characters around you to move objects and use charms.

Ride your broomstick

As the game is based totally on the book, it portrays Harry’s experience during the Triwizard Tournament, taking you through various events similar to the book which includes, battling a fire breathing dragon, swimming in the waters of Dark Lake, and running about in a gigantic maze. Other than that you will also have the freedom to roam around Hogwarts and this time you have full access to the insides of the Forbidden Forest, Hogwarts Lake, and high above in the skies over the towers of the castle. It seems that EA will continue with the shop-like features present in the last games, where you could trade multi-flavored Bertie Bott’s Flavored Beans to Fred and George Weasley for a wizard card, or for other joke items like dung bombs and stink pellets. The same is for the wizard card trading, which allows gamers to collect cards with famous witches and wizards on them and then trade them for rarer cards.

Spells and Charms

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire features 3 different types of spells, Jinxes, Charms and Axia. Charms are spells that help in manipulating the environment, when combined they help in moving objects such as large logs or rocks. Jinxes are the spells which are used to attack enemies during combat, and the last, Axia spells summon an entity which can be used according to situation. There are different creatures in the game, which are vulnerable to four different types of jinxes, and you can try different jinxes on them to find which one does the maximum damage. Similar to the previous titles the 3 friends can combine their magic to make it stronger, but this time they can do combinations of spells to make new spells, which was missing in the previous titles.

The improvements

The game’s look seems to have undergone an overhaul since Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban which came out last year. The models of characters as well as creatures in the game were detailed sharply; each spells look visually amazing and colorful mainly due to the particle effect used by EA. A lot of the lighting and shading effects have been used which seem advanced compared to most current-generation titles, and equal to the upcoming next generation games.

Although the frame rate was choppy in the beta demo, but with several months between now and the game’s release, these issues should be fixed by then.

Rowling in money

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire will be available in stores in November on the PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Game Cube, DS, PSP, and Game Boy Advance, and it looks like EA just might schedule the release to fall in place with the release of the fourth movie which goes by the same title, milking never made anyone sore.