POSTED 25/11/11


LEGO HARRY POTTER: YEARS 5-7

WB Games
PS3 (also on Xbox 360, Wii, PC, DS, 3DS)

It’s been a long time coming, but finally Michael Caine has been immortalised in LEGO. Whassat? We got the wrong Harry? Oh, bugger.

Right, so we’ll have to keep waiting for that one. We won’t, however, have to wait for any more Harrys of the Potter variety, for this is it folks – the end, finito, a-riv-er-doi-ci even. Yep, the final three books – or four flicks - given the blocktastic treatment as the bespectacled half hoggle from Mugwarts heads towards his ultimate showdown with the smushy-schnozzed bloke that can, apparently, be named nowadays, Mouldyvort. Or something.

If you played the last LEGO Harry Potter – or, indeed, any of the LEGOfied series (save perhaps for the criminally shunned LEGO Rock Band) – you’ll know the score. A wonderful mix of faithfulness to JK Rowling’s spell-casting yarns, exploration, puzzle solving and humour, with oodles of areas to explore, and whatever the word is for something that makes oodles seem like stuff-all in the way of different collectibles to find – if you can stop obsessively gathering studs. Seriously, you could do your damnedest to plough through and still get caught up for yonks, there’s that much to do.

There are improvements over the last outing, and not just the darker, more sinister tone of the story. New spells have been introduced, as well as duelling, Ron Weasley’s funk-laden gloop-gloop-gloop wall-walking shoes and venturing into (and over) London – punks and all. Hogwarts has also been given a spring spit and polish.

If you’re not down with the Potterverse then you’ll have NFI what’s going on here, but if you dig on other LEGO games it won’t really matter. It speaks volumes that it took toy blocks (and plenty of ’em) to deliver the best ever Harry videogame... well, until Mr Brown gets his shot.

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