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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

List Price: $19.99
Your Price: $17.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Big disappointment
Review: After buying and enjoying the first two games in this series, we were eagerly anticipating the arrival of the third installment. But, we were very disappointed. Game play was very short. We were able to go through the entire game in about a day.

I'd save your money and avoid this game. Hopefully, EA will do a better job with the next version.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Sorry I wasted my money
Review: After playing the Chamber of Secrets game I was really looking forward to this one coming out and I think I was one of the first to buy it, but there is no story to it and it is way to short and the challenges are way to simple. I am a 67 year old grandmother and had no trouble finishing the game. It just wasn't fun. I was also annoyed at having three characters running around together. If you haven't played the Chamber of Secrets game, play that and you will see what I mean.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Lots of fun...and missed opportunities
Review: At the risk of repeating what everyone else has said, this was a fun, beautiful game, but WAY too short. (And too easy, but I suppose it is aimed at a young audience.)

And what they left out just makes you scratch your head. Were you looking forward to kicking a little Quidditch butt on your Firebolt? Sorry. You'll get one tiny cut scene and no chance to play yourself - which makes no sense, as the Quidditch in the second game was well-handled. I would have preferred they just copied it!

You will get to fly Buckbeak quite a bit - only to have the important bit of flying turned into a cut scene. And here I was looking forward to counting thirteen windows! They make up for it somewhat with all the dragon flying, though.

I also wasn't happy with the transitions between chapters, which took forever and happened when you least expected it, like right after they said you could go exploring. I was never sure when I could go visit Fred and George's Shop, say, so always felt in a hurry.

And of course, worst of all, NO SNAPE!!! (Although I suppose some of you will see that as a feature. ;-)

On the good side, changing from Harry to Ron to Hermione was handled seemlessly. And bunnies are very, very fun (at least for those of us of the female persuasion)! Although why they bothered to come up with new stuff when they could have used more from the book...

All in all, I enjoyed it and am glad I bought it. But I sure hope the Tournament in the next one is more exciting.

Rating: 0 stars
Summary: the firebolt
Review: Harry gets the firebolt at christmas the firebolt is the fastest broomstick in the wizarding world It probblay goes 50-200 MPH that would be really fast and the nimbus 2001 I think goes 40-100 MPH the nimbus 2001 can't stop the firebolt IT would look like a joke next to the firebolt in the 3rd game ther firebolt is going to be fast in the quidditch match aginst slytherin you may be able to fly the firebolt around the castle grounds like you can do whith the hippogriff the best part of the game will be the firebolt I am a relly big harry potter fan I bet I will enjoy the game I think It will be awsome bye for now peace out bye

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Lots of fun but rather disappointing in a number of ways
Review: Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban is a great game, but I think it falls far short of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in terms of gameplay, atmosphere, and most certainly duration. I enjoyed the chance to play as Ron and Hermione, but it's not as if you choose one for a certain situation - it's all predetermined by the game itself. I was happiest when the trio stayed together and worked as a team - a number of different actions require the skills of more than one of our young wizard characters. Nice new additions such as this to the HP gaming experience turn out, unfortunately, to be few and far between. Much more is lost than is gained here.

The graphics are quite good, for the most part, but they just don't make Hogwarts come to life. In fact, Harry is pretty much just thrown down in the middle of the place and sent to class without any adequate introduction - there's no animation clip of Harry's departure from the Dursley household, no get-together in the Great Hall, only the briefest of welcomes from Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall, and little chance to really settle in. Hogwarts itself seems to lack character, especially when viewed from outside the grounds - I never felt as if I were really "home." The experience is further diminished by the nonexistence of Quidditch matches, a House Points Championship, or extracurricular activities such as wizard dueling. Then there's the length of the thing. Just as I was settling in and planning to get start exploring the place in earnest, I found myself almost at the end of the game. This feels more like a demo than a complete game. You basically only learn three new spells here, and the spell challenges are much shorter than those of the earlier Harry Potter games. And even though Hogwarts looks bigger in this game, there is much less to do and explore than I was expecting based on my memories of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The only association you really have with your professors is in the challenges; in fact, there is hardly any interconnection with characters other than Harry, Ron, and Hermione in the entire game (even Draco Malfoy is kept out of the picture almost completely). Things come much too easily, even when Harry has to battle a horde of Dementors. As bad a player as I am, I had little trouble advancing quickly past all of the challenges - that is a clear sign that the game is much too easy.

The game does have its good points. Flying Buckbeak is loads of fun and makes for an almost serene experience. Expecto Patronum makes a fine addition to Harry's repertoire of wizarding skills, the ability to create and temporarily control small dragons makes for a bit of a fun challenge, and Carpe Retractum offers up a different and rather risky way to get around inside a challenge. The ability to create little rabbits and send them out to explore the local area is fun at first but eventually feels a little silly. I also have mixed feelings about the new Glacius spell, largely because sliding down frozen streams of water just doesn't seem to jibe with my concept of Hogwarts and Harry Potter in particular. All of this points to the most problematic issue with the game - it all too often wanders far afield from the events of the novel and movie. This renders the whole Sirius Black storyline as almost incidental and anticlimactic at best. Giving the game designers such a free hand in terms of content seems to have led to a concentration on the gaming aspects rather than the storyline, and that weakens the whole experience.

Harry is basically just going through the motions in this third installment of the HP gaming saga. When I finished the Chamber of Secrets game, I went right back in and played it a second time. Having finished The Prisoner of Azkaban, I feel no such commitment to the experience and may or may not ever return to this adventure. It's still a fun game to play, but give me HP and the Chamber of Secrets any day over this newest addition to the HP gaming series.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban represents money-grubbing at its finest; EA games, based on this offering, realizes all too well that an HP game will sell well, regardless of content. With this mentality, we receive a rather disappointing game. The play is fairly solid, but there is no passion. I suspect I am not alone in wanting to really explore the world of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, but while this is the best-looking Potter game, there is no opportunity to do so. You cannot look inside desks or investigate the greenhouse, as you could in the previous two. While material for the game boasts that the gamer will be able to visit Hogsmeade, it ends up little more than a cutscene, and there is no wandering around Zonko's or the Three Broomsticks. Part of what made the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the first XBOX game, so much fun was the (admittedly) brief opportunity to see Diagon Alley. The various challenges of the game are entertaining, but as one reviewer pointed out, far too much focus is placed on them. Merely exploring Hogwarts grows tiresome, as there is always an itinerary; worse yet, you are followed by Hermione and Ron, constantly kvetching about needing to go to class. You'd figure one of the days could be on a weekend. As a plus, you have the opportunity to play as any of the three characters for a sizable portion of the game. Flying Buckbeak, though initially awkward, is a selling point, though it's at the expense of playing Quidditch or even flying the broomstick at all. The mini-games are rather pathetic also, and there's nary a gnome to be tossed. All in all, this last effort is outstripped by both previous Potter games, which is a shame. Maybe eventually, a game will come along that truly captures the essence of Harry Potter. This isn't it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Harry Just Didn't Make It With Flying Colors
Review: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was defintely a good game, but it had sone downfalls. The graphics were awesome, Fred and George's shop was defintely a convienence,and you got to switch characters, but some other things just weren't as good as the previous games.

- Harry was followed around the whole time in the castle and on the grounds. This was very annoying because every step Harry took there was pitter pats behind him.

- It was just plain easy! The dementors couldn't kill you, if you fell you lost a millimeter of stamina, and Choclate Frogs boosted your energy by 50%!

- You had to finish everything before you could end the game i.e get all 10 challenge shields, perfect all hippogriff courses, battle and defeat pixies and monster pages of books.

The game was fun though. Some things were really cute, the spells were cool, and Harry's Glacius challenge was really fun.(you get to slide on ice and defeat salmanders). Harry said erm alot though.(erm,I better use the glacius spell, erm Hermione we aren't done yet, erm I'll guess I'll take it and so on) The game is defintely worth buying and playing for a little while.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Horribly missed opportunity
Review: I agree almost completely with the review of darkgenius. Read that review. But darkgenius gave 4 stars while I give only 2. Why? Because it seems that no thought went into the game at all. There is nothing intense. Nothing challenging. Nothing surprising. Nothing to put you on the edge of your seat.

The Chamber of Secrets game was infinitely superior, more innovative, longer, more intense, had a real storyline, and had a real climax. This new Prisoner of Azkaban game has none, despite the book's being the best of the series and despite having access to the wonderfully dark and intense new movie.

Boo.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Boring!
Review: I baught this game for my 7 year old thinking that it would be clean, wholesome fun, the next thing that I know there are penisis and vaginas flying across the screen! What am I supposed to do? My child starts asking questions, and I have to start talking about erections and all of that stuff. Above that there is also a lot of foul language, drugs, and intense violence. During one part of the game Harry sticks his wand up the anus of a professor, and the charachter Ron is a cocaine addict (they just call it "majic Powder" in the game). What is the world comming to?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Azkaban PC is Great Fun
Review: I bought the PC version of Azkaban about 1 week before the movie came out. I had already read the books and played the other 2 Harry Potter games for PC. I just got the HP Prisoner of Azkaban yesterday for PS2 and am thrilled that [once again] EA Games has made it totally different from the PC version. I'm enjoying the PC version and have completed most of the game, but Dumbledore and McGonagal will remind you to check which tasks in this game you have not completed and you must go back and complete them in order to finish the game completely. So, I'm moving along through the game and enjoying the PS2 version as well. This PC version is bit easier than the PS2 and great for my 4 year old to be able to play and enjoy). I love that with each version of these games, you get different play and spells and adventures in the PC vs Playstation 2 Versions. There are 3 versions (each very different) for the Sorcerer's Stone (PC, Playstation, and Playstation 2 are all different spells and adventures).

Regretfully, the Azkaban PC version is missing a few things from the book Trelawney, Hogsmeade, a fully functional mauraders map, and Quidditch (which didn't break my heart since they have Buckbeak the Hippogriff to fly). I'm happy with it for me and for my 4 year old son's purposes and there are so many little nooks and cranny's to find things in, you can play longer and over and over.

I'm not finished with this PC version yet (Dumbledore and McGonagal keep telling me to check my tasks), but I wanted to let you all know that so far it is moving right along, with some of the most spectacular graphics for both PC and PS2 and you play as either Ron, Hermione, and Harry (these kids are really cute and have the best facial expressions). Switching between the characters is seemless, swift and easy on the eyes. You have to keep track of what each character's special talents are so that you can achieve your goals in the game, utilizing the right character's abilities. Sometimes the 3 kids will get separated and you have to play as just one, but that's very entertaining too. If you get to wandering around too much (exploring) and get sidetracked from your current "mission", one of the kids will remind you what you need to do to get back on track.

I Highly recommend this game, my little boy didn't want to go to bed the first night we had it and we were fighting over the controls - these games have taught him so much about figuring things out, he uses great vocabulary beyond his years including learning a bit of Latin that's in the names of the spells in this game, etc., and the all important hand-eye coordination is improving in him every day. He loves Harry Potter and has played all the PC games, PS2 Games, listened to the books on tape as well as me reading them to him. What a great Franchise with Loads of entertainment. Just awesome and just in time for the Azkaban Movie which is AMAZING as well.

PS: The Gameboy Advance Harry Potter games are different also, so more adventure in those as well.


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