Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Screenshots   The Final Say! Gameplay 9.0 Graphics 9.0 Sound 8.9 Value 8.9 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets  - reviewed by Tory Favro Review Date: 17 November 2002 Review Score: 8.9/10  Distributor: Electronic Arts

Following the adventures of young Harry Potter at his second year at Hogwarts, Chamber of Secrets is a fantastic adaptation of the book of the same name with a little more thrown in for good measure. For those of you who have been on another planet for several years, Harry Potter is a young wizard with a mysterious past that is starting to learn about his heritage and magic at Hogwarts. You see, in Harry's world, there is a hidden world where magic does exist although it is carefully hidden. Normal non magic using folk are called Muggles who go about their lives unaware of this secret world that Harry has become a part of.   Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Features Players 1 Memory Card 4 Units Classification: G Game Type: Adventure Skill Level: Intermediate   The level of detail in this game is incredible as is evidenced by these amazing screenshots to your left. Locations are immediately recognisable and have been created with painstaking effort to fully immerse the player into the Harry Potter Universe. "Be Harry Potter" say Electronic Arts, and with a game of such quality, you certainly feel as though you could be.   A downside to gameplay is the sheer amount of loading times that are involved in playing this game. You will sit through loading screen after loading screen. Players will soon forgive this considering how huge levels are and given that the Cube loads pretty quickly, it's over before you can really point at it as a bone of contention.   The game runs along at a decent rate and doesn't really suffer many frame problems. Controls are intuitive and follow a similar system to both Zelda and Starfox Adventures where some of Harry's moves are automatic or are assigned automatically when needed to the A button. It's a good system and allows players to get on with playing the game without getting too bogged down with learning controls.   Spells can be mapped to the button of your choice and by holding down the L button you can target your enemy and launch attacks that way. By holding down the attack button of your choice, you can launch a more powerful spell that will do more damage or have a more lingering effect. Be careful however, as mistiming will only spell disaster for young Harry, causing him to drop items picked up.

Speaking of moves available to players, there are also some cool animations such as the sneak option that will allow Harry to press against a wall to sneak past boxes and other objects. This is only possible when it appears on the screen assigned to the A button so keep your eyes peeled at all times. I found that it was worth exploring everywhere just keeping an eye on the button to see if anything came up. The controls are simple and make the game in general that much more fun as it is not hard to learn in the slightest. Even flying the broomstick is easy with simple button and stick combinations used to keep everything going smoothly.

There are many sidequests that take place over the course of the game that give it a lot more life and are welcome distractions. The developers have really worked with the license given them and have made this world very believable with the level of interaction possible to the player.

Harry gains more skills and spells throughout the game, especially when he gets to Hogwarts and his teachers start giving him tasks to complete. Gathering these abilities is vital to the continuation of the game as Harry will need all these magicks in order to get past creatures and other obstacles. There are also the fabulous Wizard Cards to find and collect, same as in the books. However in this case, finding the cards will directly benefit the player by increasing Harry's abilities as will playing Quidditch.

Chamber of Secrets is also capable of being linked to the GameBoy Advance version of the same game and we will explore these options more in the GameBoy Advance review of the game of the same name if given the opportunity.

The game is also a treat to the ears although Dolby Prologic II is not supported within the game which is quite weird considering the high quality of everything else in the game. The voice acting and effects recordings are wonderful and very convincing. Most non player characters do sound very realistic and are fun to chat to, though you will notice that they do eventually loop and for the most part don't have many important things to say.

Putting it quite simply, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a brilliant game that truly makes you part of that wonderful world and truly fulfils the claim of letting you be Harry Potter! Need we say more? Buy this game and add it to your collection today.

- Tory Favro