Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup review

Don't touch my quaffle

EA, whilst they have the commercial backing to purchase many of the biggest movie licenses, have yet to show that they can craft a genuinely groundbreaking movie tie-in. The previous Harry Potter games have continued this trend by being the gaming equivalent of easy listening, but Quidditch World Cup (QWC) serves to be a bit different by actually being an engaging spin-off.

When the Harry Potter books first turned up on the shelves of bookstores everywhere, comments were thrown around about the fact that there seemed to be the basis for a full sport hidden within them, in the form of Quidditch. EA had experimented with portraying this sport in mini-games within previous outings, but now they’ve taken it a step further and turned it into a full-on standalone game and you know what? It’s not that bad.

Go back to school

Move those bludgers

The first thing you note when loading up QWC is that you’re greeted with the classic slick EA presentation. A nice looking FMV intro and some rousing classical music (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, natch) lead into a basic looking menu system from where one can choose whether to take up Quidditch lessons at Hogwarts, host an exhibition match, go through to the Potter-ised options screen or take an attempt at the World Cup itself.

Game structure starts off really simple with players learning the basics of Quidditch at Hogwarts, whilst progressing through a mini league between the four houses. Anyone who’s seen the films (and if you haven’t, you should – they’re really not bad at all) will realise that Quidditch is a reasonably complicated affair, being made up of three-dimensional playing fields and many different player roles. EA though have made things really easy by removing the ability to move up and down from the player and by giving individual tutorials about each player type. When I say that they’ve removed vertical motion, that’s not strictly true, as when you move up and down the field, your character does rise and fall dynamically. It’s just a graphical nicety but a more than welcome one.

Play to win

The cut scenes are nice

Throughout your training you’re given the opportunity to prove your newly acquired skills by playing against the different Hogwarts houses. These matches are very easy and as the whole tutorial process takes about an hour or more, it leads the player to the (very) false impression that the full game is going to be a cakewalk. Trust me when I say that it’s not. Once your training is complete you are given the chance to play for one of the national teams in the World Cup of the title. These matches require that all your skills are up to scratch as the foreign teams all put up crackingly good fights to prevent your victory.

Matches themselves are broken down into three distinct areas. Attacking, which is “simply” a case of navigating across the field towards the opponents’ goals (there are three) and launching the quaffle into one of them. Defending involves either tackling head on, launching a special move (which in turn triggers a nice little FMV sequence) or launching a bludger (a guided missile with which you can try and knock the current quaffle holder off their broomstick). The third and final part of match play is the hunt for the golden snitch. During the game you can see two halves of a golden ball moving together at the top of the screen. These indicate how close a team is to finding the magical snitch - a lightning fast ball that zips and darts around incredibly quickly. Once these halves meet, it means the snitch has been seen and you then take the part of the chaser, trying to catch the golden globe. This is accomplished by trying to follow in the ever-elusive ball’s wake, which is very visible on screen. The first person to grab it gets a bonus of one hundred and fifty points. As there’s only ten points per goal in the match proper, this can easily make the difference between winning convincingly and losing horribly, so it’s just as important to keep up these skills as any other throughout the World Cup.

It’s this well thought out and balanced gameplay that turns QWC into a genuinely fun title and makes it more than “just another movie spin-off”. At no point during the game do you feel like you’re getting into a routine of finding that one undefended path and launching a successful goal each time. Matches always seem to be close and whether or not it’s elastic AI, it makes for good fun each and every time.

In the sinbin

Things often get frantic

Graphically it’s easy to tell that the engine has been designed for porting across formats above outstanding looks, but everything is functional, with some nice design touches to the stadiums. The frame rate is exceptionally smooth and the textures clear, which is the least that you could ask for in a sports game of this type.

Things don’t improve a huge deal with the sound, with basic commentary and voice effects merely proving adequate. This is no big downer on the game, but it would have been nice if some extra attention had been paid here.

Overall

Gameplay variety is wide

I know I’ve thrashed through this review without so much as a nod to the characters or world of Harry Potter, but that’s one thing I liked about this game. I have a minimal passing knowledge of Potter and chums and couldn’t name any characters without some prompting, but QWC still grabbed me. For those who are interested, I am assured that all the characters (Dumbledore excepted, of course) are voiced by the
actors from the recent Harry Potter films and I can assure you that the caricatures provide decent representations, too.

For all EA’s shortcomings, it makes a pleasant change to see a genuinely different title like this appear from their studios and the fact that it plays well is a nice little bonus, too. It’s not going to set the gaming world on fire, but QWC certainly provides a diverting little stopgap before the next batch of Potter films reaches these shores.