I Beat Harry Potter’s Executive Producer In A Wand Duel

Okay, so I like Harry Potter. I checked out the Wii version of EA’s upcoming Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, slated to drop alongside the film, mainly because I was interested in seeing what kind of magic wand a Wii remote made.

I had it demoed for me by executive producer Jonathan Bunney and producer Justin Manning, and it came down to a fight.

Actually, the first part of the demo let me try out the potion-mixing minigame; you’ve got a bubbling cauldron and a desk full of ingredients like little vials, bottles, leeches and caterpillars, and symbol-based instructions for each step of the potion-making scroll up in a little wheel to the screen’s right. A potion-making sim was a first for me, and I exploded the thing a few times, but it was mostly pretty fun, especially when you can tilt the Wii remote to spill a beaker’s contents into the cauldron and then make a stirring motion to whirl it up until the colour changes. It’s all timed and ranks your precision, which was pretty fun.

Then, Bunney and I went at it with a Wii remote wand duel. He was playing Draco Malfoy and I was Harry. We faced off at either end of a long room, and you hold up the Wii remote to charge your wand for a powerful attack (leaving you undefended), or simply shake the remote in your opponent’s direction to fire off a series of quick bursts.

You use the Nunchuk to move side to side, and swinging both Wii remote and Nunchuk across your body causes you to produce a deflection shield that can send your opponent’s projectiles right back at him. Shaking both produces a special attack that can knock your opponent down or stun him.

I refuse to believe that Mr. Bunney politely allowed me to win, and instead, I’ll tell anyone who will listen that I beat the game’s EP in a wand duel.