Video Game Vintage Title: Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a video game that is based on the fifth installment of the popular Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling and the film of the same name, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PSP, Nintendo DS, Wii, Game Boy Advance and Mac OS X. It was released in 2007 on 25 June in the U.S., 28 June in Australia and 29 June in the UK and Europe for PlayStation 3, PSP, PlayStation 2, Windows and the 3rd of July for most other platforms.

The theme of the game is to explore Hogwarts and follow the story from the book and movie. EA encouraged fan participation in the development of this game, and worked with a fan council. The game returns to the sandbox style of the first three games rather than the action-oriented Goblet of Fire. Similar to any sandbox, Hogwarts is fully explorable most of the time, and there are "discovery points" that provide rewards to the player, which can be activated by completing side missions. Furthermore, there are battles between groups of students, as shown in the game trailer. This is the last Harry Potter game to be released on the Game Boy Advance.

Reception
The game itself received mixed reviews from critics. GameRankings and Metacritic gave it a score of 49.88% and 51 out of 100 for the DS version;50.33% and 50 out of 100 for the Game Boy Advance version; 63.25% and 63 out of 100 for the PC version; 65.29% and 61 out of 100 for the PlayStation 2 version; 67.03% and 67 out of 100 for the PlayStation 3 version; 57.33% and 52 out of 100 for the PSP version; 68.98% and 68 out of 100 for the Xbox 360 version; and 70.50% and 69 out of 100 for the Wii version.

Hyper's Daniel Wilks commends the game for its "great looks, the Wii-wand and in-game exploration". However, he criticises the game for its "repetitive quests and poor waypoints".

Charles Herold of The New York Times gave it a mixed review and stated that the game "has an unfinished feel, as though the game�s designers stuck in a placeholder for game play, planning to flesh it out later, only to run out of time."