Harry Potter For Kinect Casts a Spell on Me - Preview
by Daniel Share-Strom , posted on 09 June 2012 / 2,610 Views
When all these motion-control devices started infiltrating our game consoles, the first two things I thought of were ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Harry Potter’. Well, the Kinect’s offering with regard to the former is best left forgotten, but how is The Boy Who Lived shaping up for his outing on the controller that’s not a controller?
I tried three of the several available activities in the game, each requiring different actions in order to be successful. The first two centred around Quidditch, the franchise’s iconic broomstick-flying sport. In one, I played as Harry, who plays the Seeker on his team and whose sole role is to catch the flying snitch and end the game. Gameplay-wise, this translated to an on-rails game where Harry chased it automatically. All I had to do was lean in different directions to move Harry, which allowed me to keep him on the speed-boosting golden path the Snitch left in its wake. Once I caught up to it, the view shifted to first-person, and I had to move Harry’s hand so that it covered the Snitch for several seconds, thus winning the game. According to the rep I had the fastest time of the day, but the real satisfying part was being able to physically punch rival Seeker Draco Malfoy in the face when he got too close.
Next, I played as the Keeper, which is basically Quidditch’s equivalent of a goalie. This simple game had me contorting my body to swat away Quaffles tossed by the other team. The first round was relatively simple, mostly sending only one of them at me at a time. As the game progressed, I’d sometimes have to hold my left foot to the side while reaching up with my right hand in order to block a couple at once. Matters were complicated further when they started sending Bludgers my way, which I had to avoid or I would take damage. Still, the game never really approached ‘challenging,’ as I only got hit two or three times and didn’t let a single Quaffle get by me.
Switching gears to a challenge with a much darker tone, the last game placed me in the scene from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince where he and Dumbledore are in the cavern and Harry must protect his injured headmaster from the zombie-like inferi monsters. The two characters were situated in the center of a small rock island, and the beasts kept emerging from the water all around. A radar told me what direction they were approaching from and how close they were, and I could turn by leaning left or right. I could execute an attack spell by raising my right hand and quickly swiping it downward. The enemies were easy to beat while the room was lit, but darkness often enveloped everything and removed enemies from the radar. Thank God for the trusty Lumos spell—raising my left hand quickly brightened things back up. It was still a shock when I would turn the lights back on only to find that an inferi was right behind me! Eventually (and just in time), Dumbledore was able to conjure up his ass-kicking spell and get us out of there.
As far as Kinect games go, Harry Potter is certainly shaping up nicely. Unlike most other games for the device, at no time did any of my actions fail to be acknowledged. When I messed up, it was my own fault, and not the camera’s. I am a big Harry Potter fan, so the unexpected quality of this game was certainly a treat. You, too, can adventure at Hogwarts when the game launches later this year.
