Hallows be thy lame…
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 was a poor attempt into changing the traditional game into a third-person shooter with a flawed cover system and terrible controls. I hoped that Part 2 would redeem the series after that mess, but sadly I was wrong and instead it suffers from the same problems as its predecessor.
The game has a nice opening which explains that you are on a dangerous and urgent quest to locate and destroy the remaining Horcruxes to defeat Voldemort and the voice-acting isn’t too shabby, although the game doesn’t do a very good job in telling the full story, probably to avoid spoilers for those who haven’t watched the film yet, but it just feels a lazy attempt to tell it.
The gameplay remains sadly unchanged from Part 1 and is just a complete mess, it’s repetitive, predictable and most of all, dull to play. I just don’t understand what made them think that it’d be a good idea to turn the game into a third-person shooter with a cover system, it just doesn’t make sense. Both enemy and ally AI is terrible, I was able to walk upto a lot of enemies and blast them, not even needing to use cover. It also doesn’t make sense to have a shooter with a wand that only works at close range, it’s not a shotgun so it should be able to reach wherever I aim, but it doesn’t.
The game is only roughly 2-3 hours long, although it can be even shorter than that if you don’t bother to look for collectables or try it on the harder difficulty. It’s pathetically short for the price of admission, the film is probably longer than this cheap cash-in. Move support is added to the sequel, but its still a total pain to play with it. You will unlock challenges to attempt for collecting items through the story, but there’s no online to speak of…which is just as well, I shudder to think of a multiplayer mode…
I don’t hate the game because I’m not a fan of Harry Potter, I hate it because it’s just a terrible game that was definitely rushed to reach a deadline, as are most games based on films and the quality suffers as a result. Unfortunately, this game has no quality to speak of and is easily the turkey of the year alongside DNF. The graphics aren’t bad, but they are average and an IP like Harry Potter deserves more attention than what has happened in all his games thus far, especially the latter two which are the worst in the series.
The Verdict
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is a terrible game matched only by the poor excuse that was its predecessor. It’s over quickly, has no redeeming features and has flawed gameplay from start to finish. Harry deserved better for his “final” outing…
