Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup Review (no fat)

Game Description

Welcome to the magical world of Harry Potter. Unlike the other Harry Potter games which are action adventure games based on Harry Potter movies, Quidditch World Cup is the electronic version of the famous ‘Quidditch’, the famous magical world sport.

‘Quidditch’ is a game introduced in Harry Potter novels played on brooms. The play arena in Quidditch is an oval field, with three Hoops of varying lengths at each opposite end of the field. Hoops are the areas in which you score goals.

Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup Gameplay

The game is played with 4 balls, namely ‘Quaffle’ which is used to score goals; two magically driven balls named ‘Bludgers’ which are used by players to attack the players of opposite team by launching ‘Bludgers’ at them with their small bats and; fourth and most important ball called ‘Snitch’, which is of very small size almost the size of an Table Tennis ball and is very fast.

The game ends when either of team gets hold of ‘Snitch’. 10 points are awarded for every ‘Quaffle’ scored and the ‘Seeker’ earns his team 150 points when he catches the ‘Snitch’…and if you didn’t know all this before reading this review, you not likely to enjoy the game anyhow.

Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup starts with a few tutorials with a few games integrated in between. These serve as milestones and further unlock the game tutorials at later stages. The purpose of the tutorials is to let you grasp the fundamentals strongly.

First of all, you are introduced to the basic concepts of how to pass the ball, shoot the Quaffle and tackle. Afterwards you move on to play against the other Hogwarts houses to test skills. Then, you advance to the Bludgers; dodging them and learning some special moves after which you play further test games. Finally most special and somewhat rigorous move of combo passes is introduced.

While playing the House Tournament, you can choose any of the four houses; Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Once you win the round robin tournament against all other houses at Hogwarts, World Cup is unlocked. Here you can select from nine different teams namely USA, Australia, France, Germany, England, the Nordic Team, Japan, Spain and, the famous Viktor Krum’s, Bulgaria.

Don’t expect to be in the shoes of a ‘Seeker’ right from the start. To acquire this status you have to first prove your skills by playing the ‘Chasers’. Making them launch as many goals is not the only thing aspect of the game, you have to play tactically make passes, combinational moves. During the course of the game, depending on your performance, you are awarded with special power-ups.

As you do something in benefit of the team or score goals, a golden snitch bar at top of screen advance towards the center, similarly is done for the opposite team, when the two bars meet, then you are given the control of ‘Seeker’ in which you are involved with the seeker of opposite team in chase of the ‘Snitch’. In this mode you have special privileges like power boost. Once the snitch is captured the game is over. During the game, you can also win special Quidditch Cards which give you access to new pitches and special moves.

Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup Controls

Controls of Quidditch World Cup are the very thing that hinder in pronouncing the game as superb. The controls are rather limited and with unpredictable effects. To top things off, they tend to be rather slow in a fast paced sport.

Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup Video

Although the controls let the game down, graphics of Quidditch World Cup are a notch higher than ‘good’. Pitches are designed very aesthetically and provide an impression of uniqueness. Special effects such as cold air being exhaled by players are shown beautifully.

All along the game, you will meet and play with your favorite Harry Potter characters. Whether it is playing with Potter himself, or combating evil moves of Draco Malfoy, even muggles will enjoy this unorthodox sports title.

Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup Audio

Audio is simply average with the music being over pitched and dramatic. The commentary also seems to be repetitive and without context. For a game with the name tag of Harry Potter, Electronic Arts should have put an extra effort in audio…

Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup Summing Up

Harry Potter: Quidditch World is a decent step into this Fictional Sports category. Harry Potter fans might rue the soggy controls but the lure of having another does of the magical world can be too powerful sometimes (…maybe the developers were banking on that too), however, muggles looking for an intro to the world of Harry Potter would better skip to another title more authentic to the skill and pace of the sport.

Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup Cost

The game is currently available for $14.95US at the time of writing.