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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince review trailers

By Brad Cook
It’s the first day of school, but rather than reading, writing, and arithmetic, the students at Hogwarts are getting ready for another year of potions, spells, and Quidditch. Executive producer Jonathan Bunney and I make our way through chattering clusters of wizards-in-training, seeking out one in particular: Harry Potter, the bespectacled boy whose destiny is intertwined with that of the evil Lord Voldemort.










We find Harry and his friend Ron Weasley descending the shifting Grand Staircase, running past portraits that provide shortcuts to other parts of Hogwarts’ vast grounds. (Once you learn the password for a portrait, you can use it any time.) They’re following the ghost Nearly Headless Nick, who can be summoned any time you need help finding a location around the school. We fall in behind the trio.

“The games have changed quite a bit during the series to match the age of the characters and the situations they find themselves in,” explains Bunney. “The early games were definitely for younger kids with traditional videogame mechanics such as jumping onto platforms, but the most recent games are much closer to the look and feel of the films.”





Authentic, Explosive, and Disgusting
Harry and Ron arrive at their destination: the potions class taught by professor Horace Slughorn, who retired but returned at headmaster Albus Dumbledor’s behest. Slughorn plays a key role in the game’s story, while potion-making has evolved into an important mini-game this time around, thanks to Harry’s discovery of an annotated textbook — marked as once belonging to the Half-Blood Prince — that helps him perfect the skill. “We spent a lot of time on allowing you to make many authentic, explosive, and disgusting potions in multiple locations around the school,” says Bunney.




We watch as Harry races against the clock to complete a complex potion that will earn him a special luck potion known as Felix Felicis. (Yes, it will play a vital role later in the story.) He must carefully add each ingredient to a simmering cauldron, waiting until it turns just the right color — if he pours in too much, smoke billows from the concoction, forcing him to clear the air before he can continue. Some steps require him to increase the flame below the mixture to obtain a new hue, or to shake ingredients before adding them. Neatness counts in the overall score, and it turns out to be trickier than it looks to add ingredients without making a mess.





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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince