Macintosh

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Given that the character interactions are limited to running into your buddies, Ron and Hermione, who lead you to your next class, Harry Potter is hardly an RPG. It's essentially a version of Quake with a heck of a lot more story and none of the latent homoeroticism (I'm sorry...we're talking about a game where muscle-men run around with big guns and call each other "bitch"). It's not exactly faithful to the book, but—like all adaptations—it takes what it can and invents the rest to make its format work.

The question before us is, does the Chamber of Secrets game manage to be both a good game and worthy addition to the Harry Potter franchise? I believe it does. The developers clearly went the extra mile to try to improve on the first, already-successful Harry Potter game, and they improved it in most respects. On the other hand there is still room for improvement in a few places, and there is currently a serious bug in the OS 9 version of which players need to be aware.

While HP2 is an improvement overall, its improvements are definitely evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. I imagine that if the developers can keep it up, HP3 will be a decent game, but this iteration of the Harry Potter game franchise still falls a little short. Kids will no doubt enjoy being able to take part of Harry's world on their computer. With the proper supervision, they will be able to play the game pretty well, but younger kids will more likely get frustrated with the game than not. HP2 is not for the hardcore gamers. It is for fans of the Harry Potter series, serious fans at that.

Noticeably better than Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets offers casual gamers a fun tie-in with the popular book and movie, and it gives them a chance to experience the world of Harry Potter for themselves.