Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix follows Harry, Ron and Hermione through their fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry's believes that “He Who Shall Not Be Named” is back and when the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor declines to teach spells to defend against such dark forces, Harry and his friends make the situation personal. Harry Potter debuts on current generation systems with this title, and it looks better than ever.

As many gamers know, it’s hard to find a game adaptation that's actually fun to play. After many attempts (many, many attempts), game developers have begun to discover which parts of the film work well in the video game industry, and which parts don’t fit at all. Though you have had horrible experiences in the past (Spider-Man 3...), with this year's Harry Potter, you should be pleasantly surprised.

Although it has its flaws, Order of the Phoenix is what a Harry Potter game should be. Rather than trying to create fake action, EA concentrates on really making you feel like you're at Hogwarts. Past Harry Potter games have at many points completely out of place, with side stories everywhere to make the game more action packed. Well, Order of the Phoenix is a bit different. Even though it still has invented side stories so that the player isn’t just walking around class all day, it also follows the story in almost the same way the movie does.

EA tried to make the game feel like the movie as much as they could, so that means no health bar, no points, nothing. The only time a HUD ever shows up in the game is when the player enters a different room; it’s just a small message on the screen to let you know where you are. Aside from the simplistic map that appears every time the main character enters a room, players are given the Marauders Map. If you’re a huge fan of the films, you will probably love the detail they put into the paper – it’s an old yellow parchment that contains the entire Hogwarts layout and includes the ability to track anyone in the building. The map is brought up by pushing the select button; from here you can see where you are and where everybody else is on the map. You can then select what person you want to go to and when you exit the map you just have to follow the footprints to your location. An interesting thing to note is that the footprints match exactly the same ones in the film.

Another interesting part of the game that adds to the feel of it is that whenever you are passing people in the hallway they will react to you differently depending on what house they are from. If you pass a Griffindor they may complement you or tell you that they can’t wait for the next meeting of Dumbledores’ army, and if you pass a Slytherin they may throw an insult or two your way.

Besides the messages telling you what room you are in and the footprints on the ground, the game feels like you are actually in the movie. Something that adds more to this movie-like experience is that the castle is an exact blue-print of the one in the movie. The visuals are significantly improved from all the other Harry Potter’s, so the environments are beautiful and the paintings on the wall move just as they do in the movies.

There are many things to do in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. With more than 35 tasks for Harry to magically make his way through, the game is focuses on personal exploration of Hogwarts very strongly. You'll learn six non-combat spells: push things backward with Depulso, smash stuff with Reducto, all of which are your starting points. Hogwarts is primarily a sandbox environment, so you could just wander around the school using Wingardium Leviosa to place paintings on the wall or Reparo to fix broken pots. From these little things, each move unlocks around over 4,300 discovery points hidden around the place that make Harry's spells more powerful and unlock secrets in Moaning Myrtle's Room of Rewards. During a majority of the first ... (continued on next page)