I’m probably not anything like the target demographic of the Harry Potter: Spells iPhone game. Even so, a chance at reviewing an app that leverages the iPhone’s motion sensing abilities to let me turn my friends to stone was too good to pass up.
Unfortunately, Warner Bros. has taken an ambitious idea and executed it without much thought to gameplay.
The game is remarkably similar in concept to an iPhone game called Magic Wars, but with much slicker production values and of course, the Harry Potter theme. It’ll let you duel against a computer opponent or pit your skills against a friend with another iPhone and copy of the game in the vicinity, via Bluetooth or wifi.
HP: Spells opens well enough, with the opening screens taking you through selecting your profile details, wand and house, the last two are assigned by the game, and you can be admitted to one of four houses at Hogwarts. House allegiance has very little practical impact in the game.
Now you’re ready to cast spells — and this is where the game falls down. Hazy instruction on how exactly to cast said spells very nearly made me quit before I’d really begun.
It took half an hour of cursing and increasingly frustrated agitating, brandishing and shaking my iPhone to get anything other than seemingly completely random results.
Of course, once I figured out that the indicator arrows should be interpreted as if the spell chart were in front of me on a wall, things became easier and the results much more predictable.
But the biggest shortfall is that there’s no real payoff for your struggle — the spells work just fine, but all the spells in each class — offensive, defensive, healing and non-duelling — do the same thing, so choosing between one offensive spell and another is arbitrary. The non-duelling spells seem to have absolutely no bearing in the game apart from looking pretty.
A pity, as the game is lavishly garnished with pretty sounds and graphics, and the premise of the game offers promise. However, trying the game is a little less risky a gamble now as it’s temporarily on sale at $3 from $5.
