Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix - Wii
Ages: Everyone - 10+

Ohmygosh this is hard. "Come on, Wingardium Leviosa, kick in!" In commenting on the PS2 controls for the spells in Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix on the PS2, I said, (they are), "Clever, and it works, but I can only imagine how much more natural it would be using the Wii stick". I got what I wished for. While the adventure was the same, playing it was different. Who ever said that learning spells was easy? There are twelve different spells divided between non-combat types to be used on inanimate objects, and combat skills to be used against evildoers and Slytherins.

Of the six different remote and nunchuck motions, the ones using just the remote was the easiest to work and felt closer to using a wand. I Reparoed my way through Hogwarts. The designers took on a challenge by upping the number of motion responses and recognitions for a single game. I am not sure where improvements will lie – player, hardware or software but the goal is to make, forever, the Wii controls easier to use than those for the other consoles. The adventure is substantially the same as on the PS2 and that review can be seen on this site.

Fun Factor: Harder to use than I thought it would be -- but it's the obvious controller.

Reviewed by: Editor - 08/07