Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Review

Last year's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets marked the first game based on the Harry Potter franchise to be targeted at a wider audience than the core children for whom the very first Harry Potter game for the original PlayStation was intended. The third-person action adventure game, developed by Eurocom, managed to offer a mix of good presentation and engaging gameplay while staying true to its source material. Nearly a year later, Electronic Arts is revisiting Harry's first adventure in a new multiplatform title, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The game, developed by EA's UK Studio in collaboration with veteran developer Warthog Games, borrows liberally from the Chamber of Secrets formula to make for a new adventure that retells young Mr. Potter's origins. While this may sound like a good idea on paper, the actual execution, unfortunately, doesn't live up to the standards of Chamber of Secrets and ends up being a lackluster game that never quite comes together.

The game's audio is good, but it isn't terribly remarkable. You will hear decent voice acting for Harry and the colorful characters you'll encounter in the game. The audio is also available in Spanish, which is a nice bilingual touch. The voice gets a bit weaker when it comes out of the assorted foes you'll face, and your foes do tend to sound a bit generic. The sound package is rounded out by ambient noises and a good collection of effects used for Harry's spells, which are fine and are suitably magical-sounding. Of the three versions, the Xbox version's audio is the best, thanks to in-game Dolby Digital, which makes the experience a bit more immersive.

Overall, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is a weak follow-up to Chamber of Secrets that seems like an awkward fit for anyone who already owns last year's game. While fans may enjoy the chance to relive Harry's first adventure in a proper action adventure game, the gameplay and graphical performance of Sorcerer's Stone doesn't differ much from Chamber of Secrets, and the game itself doesn't offer any dramatic improvements to make it a must-have. In the end Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is an unremarkable game that diehard fans may enjoy, but it's one that casual gamers and Potter fans may want to think twice about picking up.

Gamespot