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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

• By Flynn De Marco
• September 17, 2008 16:12 PM PST
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The boy wizard is back for his sixth year at Hogwarts and we get hands-on with his new magic tricks.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth in the series of Harry Potter games based on the novel of the same name. Boasting an improved wizard dueling system, a new potion making mechanic this new Harry Potter game sets to improve on the past games to create a new player experience. Also returning for the first time since the second game is a high speed Quidditch tournament. Can you catch the Golden Snitch?

Engage in wand duels with opposing wizards.

We got a chance to check out the new Harry potter game on the Wii at EA's recent showcase. Given the types of activities one engages in a Harry Potter game, the Wii seems the ideal platform to show it off on. Waving a wand, mixing a potion or steering your broomstick are all done with panache by using the Wii remote.

Dueling Wizards

A staple of the Harry Potter universe is the magic wand. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince lets you enter two player (or single player) wizard duels using your Wii remote as a wand. Depending on which moves you make with your remote you can block, stun, freeze and even hold your opponent up in the air by the heels as they wave around helplessly. The controls are fairly simple, but you'll want to memorize which gestures go with which powers if you really want to succeed.

Potent Potions

Potions class with Professor Snape is another Harry Potter mainstay. With the new potions mechanic, you can create your magical elixirs using the Wii remote to pour the various colored liquids into your cauldron. By carefully following the onscreen instructions, you must match the potion's color in the cauldron before moving on to the next step. But be careful, over pouring can cause the whole mess to turn black and belch smoke requiring you to start all over again.

Cast spells by using your wii remote as a wand .

Quidditch Master

After the second Harry Potter game, Quidditch (the main sport of the wizarding world) became a thing of the past. Awkward controls made it difficult at best to play. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the whole Quidditch game has been retooled to make it easier to play. The main goal is to capture the snitch which flits around like a lightning bug waiting for you to target it. The new Quiditch isn't exactly an in-depth sports game, but the new controls certainly make it easier and much less complicated to snatch the Snitch.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was originally slated to come out this year but has been delayed to coincide with the release of the feature film it's based on. Hopefully they will take the extra time to craft a solid story mode to link the three "mini-games" together. It will also be interesting to see how the controls translate on to the other consoles. The Wii graphics might not be the best of the lot, but the motion controls help the world of Harry Potter come alive in a way that a regular controller can't quite match.

Look for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on your favorite console or handheld in summer of 2009.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes to consoles summer 2009.

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