The Harry Potter movie games are pretty much interchangeable. Harry runs around Hogwarts in some abbreviated version of the film’s plot with a handful of duels and wizard school-themed mini-games thrown in for good measure. The only thing that’s changed in the last eight years is the technology, which increases the size of Hogwarts and makes the character models of the Harry Potter cast to look even creepier with every evolution.

The Half-Blood Prince is the penultimate book in J. K. Rowling’s seven-book series. However, since Warner Bros. Pictures have decided to split the last book into two movies, we have another two movie tie-in games from EA to look forward to after this. Here’s how this year’s model stacks up.

Loved
Hogwarts Is Bigger: Instead of confining Harry to a rigid linear path between Potions and the Quidditch pitch, the game world is opened up gradually to include all areas of Hogwarts mentioned in the books (except Hogsmeade Village). Most areas you’re free to go to once they’re unlocked, although there are some places that you’ll only see in cut scenes, like the Room of Requirement. Even so, the game world in Half-Blood Prince is so expansive, you actually have to have Nearly Headless Nick escort you to some places because you could really get lost.

Some Of The Mini-Games Don’t Suck: It’s common practice in Potter games to turn classes into mini-games. For whatever reason, the only classes Harry seems to have in Half-Blood Prince are Potions and Charms -– but at the very least, the potions mini-game doesn’t suck. At least, not the first few times. The thrill of racing the clock to pluck out and pour ingredients with corresponding Wii Remote motion controls kind of wears off when the game forces you to do it five times in a row. Still, once you’ve unlocked the Potions Club, you can voluntarily mix potions and earn badges right from the main menu without having to dick around with Professor Slughorn. It’s kind of fun.

Plot Gets Padded Out: Having seen the movie, I can barely express my exasperation with watching the in-game cut scenes mangle the movie. However, the game sometimes spares me the agony and replaces scenes from the movie with scenes from the book, or at least makes reference to things that happened in the book as a way of explaining the plot. So not only do you get a small fanboy or fangirl thrill from recognising these parts, but you also get to see characters that were omitted from the movie, like Crabbe and Goyle.

Two Player Dueling Mode: There’s a lot of flailing involved, but if two people are doing it together and perhaps you have a stash of liquor nearby, this multiplayer mode can actually be quite fun.

Fan Service: There are bits of the game that are clearly there just for the fans and not for anyone else. For example, the part of the game where you play as a love potion-poisoned Ron is hilarious. And pink.

Hated
Too Much Fiddly Wii Flailing: The game requires a lot of flailing just by its design -– for example, the duel mode is essentially all flailing and if you do anything different, you’ll get knocked on your butt a lot. However, because the controls are just plan lousy in certain sections -– especially when casting Wingardium Leviosa to obtain Hogwarts crests -– you’ll almost always find yourself suffering from shoulder pain as you struggle to manoeuvre Harry around sharp corners during a chase scene or guide him through six-pointed stars during Quidditch practice.

The Camera Is a Disaster: Most of the time, the camera remains fixed behind Harry in a third person view. However, the camera is slow and easily confused. Sometimes you’ll lose it behind a bookcase, or it will become enamored of a corner while you’re trying to get Harry through a doorway.

Plot Gets Padded Out Too Much: I don’t mind when the game skips movie scenes and I don’t mind seeing additional scenes from the book. I do mind when the game invents scenes and lines of its own that take people like Ginny or Snape completely out of character and just smack of bad fan fiction. To me, this is the opposite of fan service and I’d rather just skip it.

Some Really Horrible Voice Acting: I can understand if the Potter cast is too busy or too expensive to lend their voices to their game likeness, but couldn’t the developer at least hire people who can act? It would make the butchering of lines from the movie a lot less painful.

The Liquid Luck Part: There’s a very bizarre section of the game where Harry drinks a Liquid Luck potion and then the game goes into Naked Gun Intro mode so you can watch Harry stroll around Hogwarts to bad jazz club music. It’s awkward, it’s pointless and it actually causes me physical pain.

Fan Service Does Not A Game Make: Half-Blood Prince just doesn’t seem like it’s trying at all to establish a natural progression of events, a consistent sense of character development or anything that even makes the game worth playing on its own merits. It relies entirely on the Potter plot as a way to appeal to the player and as a means to get the player to forgive it for sucking with gameplay, voice acting and the camera. Subtract the Potter name altogether and you wouldn’t even have a “game,” just an elaborate torture device to inflict on small children.

The saddest thing about Half-Blood Prince is the part where it could have been a good game. It could have been Rockstar’s Bully set in Hogwarts with Harry having free run of the grounds and the ability to interact with the wacky school and his fellow classmates. There is a little bit of freedom to run around at the end of the game, after you’ve finished the main adventure. By that point, however, you’ve probably thrown out your rotator cuff and tossed aside your Wii Remote in disgust after being forced to duel the painfully-voiced Bellatrix Lestrange for the half-dozenth time.

As a parting shot, let me reiterate what I said when Order of the Phoenix came out for the DS: If you’re looking for a way to savour Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, you’re better off re-watching the movie. Or rereading the book. Or whacking yourself in the face with the book over and over again. Either way, you’ll be better off for having not played this game.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was developed and published by EA for the Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS and PSP. Released June 30 for $US29.99 to $US49.99. Played the Wii version and completed story mode, played two-player duel mode and spent way too much time trying to get all 150 crests.

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Harry Potter’s Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter), currently showing his dong in Broadway’s Equus in an effort to break character, suffers from dyspraxia. The actor explains how it overcame it.

I have a very mild form of it. I’ve gotten it mostly under control now. I played a lot of video games as a kid which really helped it. It basically surfaces as bad coordination.

Video games using their powers for good. Warms the heart, Harry, warms the heart.

Dirty Harry [The Daily Beast Thanks, Phil!]

And that’s all they know. No further info given. Then again, being a Lego game, do you really need further info? They’re all, largely, the same game. Running, jumping, shooting/punching, collecting Lego bits.

Just replace the IP, add a new theme song, then wonder aloud how long Traveller’s Tales can get away with it before the buying public catches on.

To anyone and everyone hoping for Lego Blade Runner, Lego Kindergarten Cop or Lego The Italian Job, sorry. You’ll have to maintain your silent vigils for a little while longer.

Lego Harry Potter in development? [CVG]

Form 8-K for ELECTRONIC ARTS INC. [Yahoo, via Variety]

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.

Harry Potter is playable and there are some decent enemy patterns to fly through. At the start of the game Harry is sluggish. Slower than the Vic Viper without any speed power ups slow… If you shoot an entire formation you might get a weapon power-up, a speed boost or an extra life represented a by flickering Harry Potter head.

Brilliant. Bosses include a dragon and a robot. A robot? Sure! Why not? Hit the jump for a screenshot.

Harry Potter Shooter [Siliconera]

I think I will be able to sell hundreds of thousands of games in a year and we’re going to expand into educational, subject-matter, library, and other markets and we will be the market leader in high quality text-based interactive educational entertainment.

I have to wonder how successful text-based games are going to be when aimed at a generation raised on CGI, but stranger things have happened (though it’s certainly ‘an eyebrow-raising prospect,’ as GameSetWatch says). It’s an interesting interview and an interesting concept – we’ll see how it pans out in the future. Could it be that interactive fiction is no longer going to be the pet project of PhDs across the country? Though I really have a difficult time imagining this as a truly commercially viable concept.

Textfyre’s Cornelson On An IF Resurgence [Gamasutra via GameSetWatch]

Four other playable demos, including ones for Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground, NHL 08, FIFA 08 and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will also be available for download tonight.

In addition to those playable options, a healthy portion of video content, wallpapers and even a track from the Lair score will be available. Here’s the full list:

• Everyday Shooter trailer
• Warhawk trailer
• Lair Behind the Scenes video
• Feel the Noise trailer
• Juiced 2 trailer
• High Stakes on the Vegas Strip: Poker Edition trailer
• Soul Calibur IV trailer
• High Stakes: Poker wallpaper
• PixelJunk Racer wallpaper
• Folklore wallpaper

Apple stock was up 5.01 (4.28%) on news that probably had nothing to do with this at all. Full press release after the jump.EA SHIPS FOUR GAMES FOR THE MAC

First EA-Published Titles Ever for Mac OS X

Redwood Shores, Calif., – August 17, 2007 – Electronic Arts Inc., (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced that Battlefield 2142TM, Need for SpeedTM Carbon, Harry Potter and the Order of the PhoenixTM and Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium WarsTM are now available to order for Mac users. These are the first games ever published by EA for Mac OS X, Apple’s advanced operating system. Users can go to the Apple Store (www.apple.com) to purchase the games today.

All games will also be available at Apple’s retail stores nationwide. Need for Speed Carbon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will be available on Tuesday, August 21, and Battlefield 2142 and Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars will be available on Tuesday, August 28.

The first games from EA for the Mac are:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, licensed by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Harry’s fifth year at Hogwarts is shaping up to be his most exciting yet. Fearing that Hogwarts’ venerable Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, is lying about the return of Voldemort in order to undermine his power, Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge appoints a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher to keep watch over Dumbledore and the students. But Professor Dolores Umbridge’s ministry-approved course leaves the young wizards woefully unprepared, so Hermione, Ron and Harry form “Dumbledore’s Army” with the goal of preparing themselves and other courageous young wizards for the extraordinary battle that looms against VoldemortTM and his Death Eaters.

Need for Speed Carbon – What starts in the city is settled in the canyons as Need for Speed Carbon immerses you in the world’s most dangerous and adrenaline-filled form of street racing. You and your crew must race in an all-out war for the city, risking everything to take over your rivals’ neighbourhoods one block at a time. As the police turn up the heat, the battle ultimately shifts to Carbon Canyon, where territories and reputations can be lost on every perilous curve.

Battlefield 2142 – Earth, 2142. As a new ice age depletes the planet’s resources, two massive multinational coalitions wage a brutal war for the only cause that matters – survival. Armed with a devastating arsenal of futuristic weaponry and gear, including active camouflage, EMP grenades, and sentry guns, plus Battle Walkers and vast airborne bases called Titans, you must coordinate the efforts of your teammates to win the war for Earth’s last fragile pieces of livable land. With extensive improvements to the groundbreaking Battlefield 2TM ranking and upgrade system and the new Titan gameplay mode, Battlefield 2142 brings the franchise’s award-winning online warfare into a harsh and desperate future.

Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars – The year is 2047. A massive nuclear fireball explodes high in the night sky, marking the dramatic beginning of the Third Tiberium War and the long-awaited return of the most groundbreaking Real-Time Strategy franchise of all time. Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars unveils the future of RTS gaming by bringing you back to where it all began: the Tiberium Universe. With the corrupt substance Tiberium blanketing most of the Earth, the infamous Kane is back to lead his Brotherhood of Nod in a massive global assault on the Global Defense Initiative (GDI) and the few remaining livable Blue Zones left on the planet. Only you can stop him. Featuring state-of-the-art next-generation graphics, an epic story, and truly innovative features such as the ability to transform online battles into a spectator sport, Command & Conquer is about to reinvent RTS gaming … again. Welcome back, Commander.

Further rounding out EA’s portfolio of Mac games is the release of Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® 08 and Madden NFL 08 in the September/October window.

In addition to these games, other EA titles available for Mac include The SimsTM 2, The Sims 2 Open for Business, The Sims 2 Pets, The Sims 2 Nightlife, The Sims 2 University, The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff, The Sims 2 Seasons, The Sims 2 Life Stories and more.

Screenshots from the games can be found at http://www.info.ea.com.