Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 Review

I'm sure someone thought a Potter-themed Gears of War clone sounded great at some point. Given the critical panning previous games in the EA movie-license series have suffered, there was definitely a good reason to change things up. Half-Blood Prince and Order of the Phoenix both used a superbly recreated Hogwarts, but that virtual play area hid two fairly dull gaming experiences. With Deathly Hallows - Part 1, EA turned up the action ten-fold but shipped a buggy mess of a game that was shallow and repetitive. The sequel is significantly better in terms of production, but the game still suffers from boring combat and too many of the best moments being conveyed via cutscenes.

If you missed the 5/10 scoring Deathly Hallows - Part 1 it's worth pointing out how EA managed to take Harry Potter and turn it into a third-person, cover-based shooter. Here your spells are essentially guns. Stupefy is your pistol, Expulso is a machine gun, Expelliarmus is a shotgun-like blast that breaks through an enemy's Protego shield and Impedimenta lets you target enemies and blast them with homing missiles. It just about works from a gameplay mechanic point of view, but as far as staying true to the Harry Potter license Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2 are the worst to date.

The game's story is centred on Harry and co trying to destroy Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes, which has let EA create a game in which you play as a variety of characters during a pitifully brief four-hour adventure. As well as sections in which you play as Ron, Hermione and Ginny, you even get to take part in a battle as Molly Weasley.

None of these characters offer anything different, though. You're almost always just hiding behind cover, popping out to shoot enemies with your gu... erm, spells. There's a tiny element of depth to be found in the way you need to use Expelliarmus to disable enemy shields before shooting them, and certain objects in the environment can be shot to cause damage, but that's really about it.

Outside of these by-the-numbers Gears of War sections, some variety can be found in the sniping section - yes, there's even a sniping mission - in which you need to provide cover for Seamus Finnigan, and a number of Uncharted-inspired 'run away from the camera while stuff goes on behind you' sequences. The latter provide some of the game's most exciting moments, but can't make up for the lacklustre missions and combat being offered elsewhere.