Harry Potter. It's a simple name that can instantly generate excitement in a large number of children, not to mention quite a few adults. Every year for what seems like an eternity (well, around 7 years at least), the general public has been treated to new instalments in the book & movie series, and has broken new records for book sales and movie attendances in their eagerness to see what Harry and his friends are doing next.

Of course, in these modern times, no big franchise goes without having a video game as well, and there has been no exception for the Harry Potter series. Created by Electronic Arts, each game release has been based around the movie and tied in with its release (except for one game that was based on Quidditch). And unfortunately for Harry Potter fans, each game released has been a pretty uninspired 3D platform/puzzle/adventure style game that although representing the Potter world fairly well, provided little in the way of good game play or excitement.

This time around, the development team has made a definite effort to try and turn this around, by adding a few new aspects and improving the look and feel of the game.

Harry Potter and his friends are returning to Hogwarts for their fourth year, and this year the school is playing host to the great TriWizard tournament, where at the end of the term a student of Hogwarts will compete against students of two other schools in a dangerous test of their wizarding skills. And of course, none other than Harry himself is competing in the tournament, with his ever-present friends Ron and Hermione helping him along his way. To be successful, the three friends will need to help each other out, often having to combine spells to tackle particularly challenging monsters or puzzles.

At the start of each level of the game, you select which of the three characters you would like to play. There is no switching mid level so you have to play as this character through the whole level. However, the great thing is the other two characters can also be played as multiplayer! At any point of the game, another 1 or 2 people can join as the other characters and play for as long or as little as they like. This is a great aspect of the game, particularly good for households with multiple kids, since three can play at once and save arguments over whose turn it is. Also when the computer-controlled character isn't doing exactly what you need them to, it is very handy to grab a real person nearby who can join in and follow your instructions.

The general course of the game has you fighting magical creatures and exploring various areas of the school. Along the way you can collect 'Bertie Bott Every Flavour' beans, which are scattered liberally everywhere. These can be used at the end of levels to buy power-up cards which can add to each character's abilities, doing such things as increasing the damage of spells, giving you extra hit points or firepower ability. This adds a rather simple RPG element to the game and for those who don't mind collecting things as you run through a game, this adds a nice touch. For others though, this could simply be annoying.

Also throughout the game you need to collect tri-wizard shields. You need to collect a certain number of these shields in each level to be able to unlock the next. This is probably the most frustrating and tiresome element of the game. Although some of the shields are easily obtained by defeating bosses, some of them require you to find secret areas on the level or solve certain puzzles. This in itself might not be so bad, but the problem is that you don't find out if you've found them all until the level is over! So unless you are quite pedantic in searching every nook and cranny, you will find yourself having to repeat levels so you can find the shields. This had me often turning by Xbox off in utter frustration, and was I not writing a review on this game I would not have bothered playing it past the first few levels.

Controlling the game is a pretty simple affair. Most of the time you will be casting spells, either at monsters in the game or parts of the environment. The spells are grouped together, with each assigned one button. These are then context sensitive to what you have selected. So for example, if you select a rock and press the button for charm spells, it will levitate it. You can also combine spells of different types - taking the rock example again you could levitate it with one button, then explode it with another. Throughout the game this works fairly well, and I only encountered a few times where the context picked up was not what I wanted it to do. The only real problem with this kind of controls is that it can get quite tedious and turn the game into a bit of a button-mashing affair.

This isn't to say that there is no fun to be found in the game though. The tri-wizard challenges themselves are quite simple but also highly fun. The part where Harry is being chased by a dragon on his broomstick is presented in a simple scrolling rail shooter kind of scenario, and is a real hoot. If there is anything worth playing through the regular levels for, then this is certainly it!

There is no arguing that the game looks great. The graphics have been vastly improved over the previous games, giving the player a more cinematic experience. The three main characters of the game are very well modelled, and although they drop short of looking life like. There has been quite a lot of detail put into the environments, and these are true to the look of the movie. It is a bit of a let down that there are no cut scenes taken from the movie, and the ones put into the game are quite short and drab. You are also unable to control the in game camera, which means that often you don't see everything, and can add frustration when you are trying to select particular objects. I could start a big rant about games that don't let you control the camera, but I think it's all been said before. I'll just say, that it is very, very annoying.