Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince PS2 game review

After having played a few of the other Harry Potter games on the PS1 and PS2, I was really looking forward to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and anticipated that it would be a thrilling and spooky game that would keep me on the edge of my seat and wanting to play more... how wrong I was.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince takes us through Harry’s sixth year at Hogwarts; Voldemort is back to full power and posing a great threat to the wizarding world and Harry has to help Dumbledore find a way to defeat the Dark Lord by finding and destroying the Horcruxes whilst also keeping an eye on his nemesis Draco Malfoy who seems to be up to no good. Of course, he still has his school work and teenage relationships to keep astride of on top of all this. This story would give the game the opportunity to provide lots of exciting challenges but, it fails to follow through on this.

The majority of the important aspects of the game are all portrayed in narrative and involve little or no interaction. In fact, you don’t really do a great deal throughout the game and it all becomes very repetitive: you duel with Malfoy and his gang, learn a new potion in potions club and play Quidditch (which has to involve an annoying warm up before each match); these aspects are broken up with narrative, talking to Ron and Hermione and following Nearly Headless Nick around the castle before the repetition starts all over again.

In previous games, you have had to explore the castle to collect Witches and Wizards Cards, Beans and other objects however, in this game, all you collect are shields which you can pick up on your travels but, collecting these very quickly becomes boring.

Despite my first impressions that this would be a hard game to complete, I soon discovered that it was ridiculously easy, meaning I had finished with it all too quickly and was left feeling disappointed and slightly ripped off!

It may be that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince would be engaging on other gaming platforms but, sadly for the PS2 it’s really not worth the time of day.

Alice in Wonerland cinema review

Wow, Tim Burton has done it again; Alice in Wonderland will blow your mind. It’s a gripping and entertaining film from start to finish and it gives the classical children’s tale a new lease of life that will appeal to a huge array of people.

Burton’s Alice in Wonderland takes us on a journey that combines aspects of the original Disney film with aspects from Lewis Carroll’s books as Alice returns to ‘Underland’ in her teenage years to face her destiny.

Alice (Mia Wasikowska) needs an escape from the pressures of a high class engagement party where she is in the spot light and facing an unexpected marriage proposal from a ginger Lord with sensitive digestion, so she follows the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen) down a hole in a tree trunk and finds herself in the fantastical world from her childhood dreams.

Alice meets some strange and wonderful creatures in ‘Underland’ including Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee (Matt Lucas), The Dormouse (Barbara Windsor), the Blue Caterpillar (Alan Rickman), the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry) and of course the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp). They all assist her in realising who she really is and they guide her towards her fate of defeating the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) and her Jabberwocky to return the crown and the power over the land to the White Queen (Anne Hathaway).

The cast for this film is fantastic but, there are two characters in particular that stand out amongst the rest. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are excellent as the Mad Hatter and the Red Queen; both shine in their roles and create enchanting performances that are a joy to watch. And they’re both mad to boot!

Tim Burton has let his imagination run wild and has put a firm stamp on this film with his reinventions of certain characters, the amazing aesthetics and the brilliant use of CGI. If anyone has possibly failed to sit up and notice Burton’s works before this then this film will surely do the trick.

In short, Alice in Wonderland is an excellent film which I would recommend to everyone. I just didn’t want it to end.