DVD Reviews

DVD Review: Harry Potter Interactive DVD Game - Hogwarts Challenge

By Jeff Swindoll Dec 27, 2007, 21:48 GMT

Harry is back on DVD, but not in the way that you expect him. He comes back to Hogwarts in this playable set top DVD game. Depending on your patience level, this will either thrill you in game play or bore you in lag time.

Harry Potter is a cash cow for both Warner Brothers and J.K. Rowling and it’s no wonder that Warner has found another way to put another Potter product on the market. This game is one that is meant to be played (either in single player mode or for up to four players) in your living room DVD player. You’re a new student at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry and will go through the school in scenes based on the first three movies. There are clips from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Chamber of Secrets, and the Prisoner of Azkaban sprinkled throughout the differing levels of game play, and bonus clips from Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix hidden within. All clips, as well as the game, are presented in fullscreen. The game play is divided into three levels of difficulty and that should please all ages of Potter fans, but the game play is dreadfully dull. I don’t know if it was my player, but there was a short lag time when you made selections and can imagine that your younger players will become easily bored. I can’t imagine if you’re attempting to play four people and having to pass the remote around the room. For example, you have to move staircases around to complete a path to get to the proper common rooms. You have to listen to the narrators spiel, the extremely capable Jim Dale (who does such a grand job on the audiobooks), and then wait for the game screen to appear. I then had to figure out which “arrow” I had to press to select a specific staircase (the arrow is colored blue when you select it) and chose the proper case. It then has to play the graphic of the staircase moving into the proper place and another graphic of a gold orb traversing the route. After completing that task I was awarded 15 points, but then appeared to lose 5 for not apparent reason after watching a clip from the first film. I can see how such a game might be appealing to some, but I found the game play rather arduous and if my reward is film clips then I already have all the films on DVD and can just pull one of them out without to play any games. It reminded me of the annoying extras on the first DVD where to get to the special features you have to complete a series of games and that was the only way to get to them. Since this game has the subtitle of Hogwart’s Challenge I get the impression that a series of DVD set top games are planned. I can’t really recommend this one since I became easily bored with it, but can see the appeal to those that might not have specific game consoles or lack a PC. However, if you have either of those and have played Potter games on them then you’ll be in the same boat that I was in with this one since the interactivity in those formats is much better. The only thing that could be described as a special feature is a selection of trailers, one for Order of the Phoenix, the Christmas Classic Collection, and Chill Out Scooby Doo. It may have sounded like a good idea, but the proof is in the pudding and I found that this Potter concoction has fallen flat because it’s so slow (in our fast paced world) that it becomes boring. Harry Potter Interactive DVD Game - Hogwarts Challenge is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for this version in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.

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DobbyMay 26th, 2008 - 16:44:53

I agree with the reviewer. The games are for the most part incomprehensible (other then spells and selecting items on a Diagon Alley shopping trip), so you play for 5 seconds, fail, and have to wait 45 seconds to try again. We never got to the Whomping Willow.

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KCJun 30th, 2008 - 23:53:07

I also agree, I could never figure out the owls or Quidditch because every time I hit the arrow it would end up with me in the hospital. So I always ended up losing and never got past the first year. The games on the movies are better than this 'dvd'. I am EXTREMELY dissapointed in the whole thing.

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DVD Review: Harry Potter Interactive DVD Game - Hogwarts Challenge

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