Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4: Preview

Lego has been around for some 60 odd years, but it’s only became a video game success in recent times. Everywhere you look now you see a Lego adaptation of a video game in some form, with Batman, Indiana Jones, Rock Band and Star Wars all receiving the bric-a-brac treatment of late. Now it’s the turn of Harry Potter and chums to step up and be counted - literally, piece for piece – in a new and intriguing way.

Lego Harry Potter will cover the first four years of Harry Potter’s tenure at Hogwarts, which in turn is the first four books: Philosopher’s Stone (Sorcerer’s Stone for US), Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire. The reason they’ve split them this way is because with the last book now being split into two movies and two stand-alone games itself, it essentially marks the half-way point in the overall adventure. They did something similar with Lego Star Wars, splitting the original trilogy from the newer one, which was done to allow more development time.

The game will have a strong emphasis on both collecting and exploring, but also require you to master spells, potion making and your fair share of puzzle solving to progress. The spells are accessed through a ‘spell wheel’ similar to the weapon wheel found in the Ratchet & Clank series. These can come in handy along your way, and in some cases are mandatory to progress. Wingardium Leviosa you may find is most commonly used, this allows you to lift and arrange Lego bricks to be used in an assortment of ways.

As is typical with Lego games, there are a large number of playable characters for you to unlock throughout the game – up to 140 in fact – from Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Albus Dumbledore and Rubeus Hagrid, to more obscure ones such as Fang and Buckbeak. In free-play mode your character can be changed by discovering a polyjuice potion, and with each character comes a unique set of stats for casting spells, riding brooms, etc. Each also comes with their own special ability specific to them, Sirius is able to transform into his Animagus for example.

The game will come with a two-player split-screen ability, as well as online support.

The demo is available for download now on Xbox Live, with PlayStation Network and PC appearances in the offing. The full game will be released on June 25 in Europe, June 29 in North America and June 30 in Australia, and can be bought for PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS and Windows.

Craig Bryan, NoobFeed