(...) Seeing as the last two PC versions of the game had taken several days to complete and had been quite challenging, this one was expected to be the same. I could not have been more incorrect.

The last game from beginning to a mostly-cutscene rescue of Sirius Black (no, you don't get to fly Buckbeak to the tower, or ever outside of a learning experience), takes almost two and a half hours. The entire game is comprised of basically 4 locations: Hogwarts castle and its grounds, and the three areas where you learn three new spells. That's it. No more. No Hogsmeade. No Forbidden Forest. No Boggarts. No Professor Trelawney.

Even thinking about the game makes me reconsider the word "disappointing" as it doesn't seem severe enough.

Please do not trust the box which says the game is more challenging and that you are allowed to play as Harry, Hermione or Ron. That is partially true, you do play as different characters... just you're never given an opportunity to decide which character you're playing as. Sound fun? No, probably not.

Here's hoping EA chooses a different design team for Goblet of Fire or we may well lose all three tasks in the Triwizard Challenge or that insignificant scene at the end where Lord Voldemort returns.

And now the 4th Harry Potter video game based on the third movie remains to be the same and no interesting materials have been made, and graphics are clean as usual but gameplay is very slow, complicated and unlike the others seems to be cheesy. EA didn't do well for the Harry Potter series like they did for the gigantic Lord of the Rings series which improved over the last 3 years based on graphics, real life scores from the movie, same interesting story mode and voices from the cast of the award winning movie.

I ordered the game from EBgames.com with Overnight shipping and it arrived Wednesday morning. Seeing as the last two PC versions of the game had taken several days to complete and had been quite challenging, this one was expected to be the same. I could not have been more incorrect.

The last game from beginning to a mostly-cutscene rescue of Sirius Black (no, you don't get to fly Buckbeak to the tower, or ever outside of a learning experience), takes almost two and a half hours. The entire game is comprised of basically 4 locations: Hogwarts castle and its grounds, and the three areas where you learn three new spells. That's it. No more. No Hogsmeade. No Forbidden Forest. No Boggarts. No Professor Trelawney.

Even thinking about the game makes me reconsider the word "disappointing" as it doesn't seem severe enough.

Please do not trust the box which says the game is more challenging and that you are allowed to play as Harry, Hermione or Ron. That is partially true, you do play as different characters... just you're never given an opportunity to decide which character you're playing as. Sound fun? No, probably not.

Here's hoping EA chooses a different design team for Goblet of Fire or we may well lose all three tasks in the Triwizard Challenge or that insignificant scene at the end where Lord Voldemort returns.

The Azkaban PC version is a bit easier, but still a fun play (regretfully missing a few things from the book Trelawney, Hogsmeade, a fully functional mauraders map, and Quidditch (which didn't break my heart since they have Buckbeek the Hippogriff to fly). I'm happy with it for me and my 4 year old's purposes and there are so many little nooks and cranny's to find things in, you can play over and over.

I'm not finished with this PS2 version yet, but I wanted to let you all know that so far it is moving right along, with some of the most spectacular graphics - You play as either Ron, Hermione, and Harry (these kids are really cute and have the best facial expressions). Switching between the characters is seemless, swift and easy on the eyes. You have to keep track of what each character's special talents are so that you can achieve your goals in the game, utilizing the right character's abilities. Sometimes the 3 kids will get separated and you have to play as just one, but that's very entertaining too. If you get to wandering around too much (exploring) and get sidetracked from your current "mission", one of the kids will remind you what you need to do to get back on track.

I Highly recommend this game, my little boy didn't want to go to bed last night and we were fighting over the controls - these games have taught him so much about figuring things out, he uses great vocabulary beyond his years, and the all important hand-eye coordination. He loves Harry Potter and has played all the PC games, PS2 Games, listened to the books on tape as well as me reading them to him. What a great Franchise with Loads of entertainment. Just awesome and just in time for the Azkaban Movie which starts TODAY.