Over the last few years we’ve been fortunate enough for the world created by J.K. Rowling to come to life on screen through a series of films and have followed swiftly onto consoles for games world wide. This year there was no new film so what no story for the game to recreate well EA not happy to let the licence potential pass for a year have created Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup.

Quidditch is a high-flying and dangerous sport played by wizards around the globe within the books and movies from the series and now EA have brought the Quidditch experience to xbox. Quidditch is basically a mix of football and rugby whilst flying on broom sticks and with 3 goals at each end of the arena in which to score using a quaffle in place of a more normal ball, each team contains seven players, three "chasers" who are responsible for passing and shooting. A keeper who guards the rings (goals). Two "beaters" who are responsible for batting the "bludgers" away from the team and firing Bludgers at the opposing teams players. (Bludgers are random spheres that knock the players off their broomsticks) and finally there is a "seeker" whose sole job is to chase and catch the Golden Snitch which completes each game.

Ea have the vast experience in the sports genre of games with the ever the successful FIFA and Madden series of titles but can they take that to the skies and deliver similar addictive gameplay as is becoming the norm with there ever increasing range of sports titles?

Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup features 3 main modes of play, Hogwarts, World Cup and Exhibition. Hogwarts is where players start and battle between the various houses such as Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin from the Hogwarts house and also incorporates a nice tutorial mode where you earn new skills such as Combos, Special Moves, Seeker and Beelers & Bulgers which in turn earn you Quidditch cards after each successfully completed challenge.

World Cup mode only becomes available once you have successfully competed in the Hogwarts challenge is a league between various nations such as England, Spain, Australia, France, the USA and in which you compete for ultimate global supremacy amongst your fellow wizards. Quiddith World Cup is very similar to the Hogwarts Challenge with the simple addition of more teams with which to compete, each game is only completed once the golden snitch is released and caught by the seekers.

Exhibition mode allows you to play one off games of Quidditch against various teams which you unlock throughout the game, sort of a friendly game without too much of the friendliness!

Gameplay:

Harry Potter Quidditch World cup is fairly easy to pick up and play and fro the more dedicated gamers amongst us very easy, although as you progress through the various challenges and leagues the game does become slightly harder I don’t think many will struggle to compete with even the very best opponents. Your players don’t need to worry about altitude as this is handled by the game which is in some ways good and some bad. Good being that you can concentrate simply on controlling your players which keeps the game flowing nicely and makes it much easier to manoeuvre bad as you can’t drop in from above on your opponents and avoid tackles and bludgers.

Graphics:

Graphically it is very sharp the players and animation are very well created and fit the Harry Potter theme excellently, fans of the movies will recognise the players from Hogwarts and the arenas are all nicely created to match there location although the bright nature of the stadiums at times makes it a little tricky to see who has the quaffle, but generally speaking the graphics are excellent with a rock solid frame rate and great animations the game really does look good on the Xbox console.

Sound:

Well the sounds throughout the game follow very nicely with the overall theme created by the developers, the whoosh of the quaffle or buzz of the bludgers and the general atmospheric sounds like the crowd cheering and booing and commentary where appropriate are all very natural and add to the atmosphere of the game.

The biggest let down in the sound department is that all too familiar problem with sports titles and the repetitive commentary, after a very short time the commentary is very repetitive, maybe an option to turn it off would have been an ideal addition not only to this title but several others I can think of!

Longevity:

I wouldn’t think Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup will take many players excessive amounts of time to complete, the game does become rather repetitive routine of tackle, pass, pass, score, tackle, pass, pass, score even on the harder settings later in the game I was not challenged to a too greater test by the computer controlled team,

Overall:

Overall Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup is a mixed bag, yes it plays well and looks good but lacks variation or enough challenge to keep even the biggest Quidditch or Harry Potter fans amused for long periods, if the game is played for shorter periods of time over several weeks there may be just enough o keep you coming back but in the end it still comes back to the same oh same oh and the feeling of tackle, pass, pass, score, tackle, pass, pass, score some more even the grand finally of each game and the chase for the golden snitch becomes repetitive. A great fun game in short burst and maybe just enough to entertain the Quidditch or Harry Potter fans for a sustained amount of time.