Harry Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince Quite Contrary

As if releasing a blockbuster movie is not enough, the makers of the Harry Potter movies are also banking on their video game franchise and hopes to make Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince a success in the Sony PSP gaming scene. Come November 2008, Potter-maniacs will be able to enjoy back-to-back Potter action on both the silver screen as well as on their smaller but no less dynamic PSP screens.

In this sixth installation of the Potter series, Harry and his trusty mentor Dumbledore are hard at work in order to vanquish the dangerous nuisance that is Voldemort. The game will introduce Professor Horace Slughorn, Dumbledore’s resourceful but hapless colleague-cum-friend, a character that has been well received in the Potter books. The wise head of Hogwarts enlists Slughorn’s help to help gather information and seek out Voldemort’s weaknesses. There will also be side stories pertaining to the Hogwarts students’ love interests especially those involving Harry’s growing affection for Ginny, Ron’s rather one-sided relationship with Lavendar Brown and Hermione’s stubbornness about revealing her true feelings for a certain someone!

Electronic Arts went public about the latest developments for the Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince PSP game and said that fans can expect to see Harry and Drac duke it out on wizard duels in a special Duelling Room. There will also be potion brewing quests and of course, who can forget about the much awaited Quidditch games? I for one would love to see greater game play control on the PSP platform.

Like a string of handkerchiefs pulled from a magician’s sleeve, Electronic Arts has produced a seemingly never-ending line of Harry Potter games and spin-offs on virtually every possible platform. Beyond the games based on the blockbuster movies, EA has also released Quidditch World Cup–a fantasy sports game based on a competition that played a significant part in the Potter books–and a variety of mobile phone games like Find Scabbers and Mastering Magic. There was even a massively multiplayer online Harry Potter game planned at one point.

According to EA they are going to bring out a full line of games based on the upcoming film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Timed to coincide with the film’s November release, the games will arrive on the Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, PSP Games PC, Mac, and mobile phones.

EA’s UK-based Bright Light studio is handling development on the game and looking to improve on previous installments of the series “with a particular focus on the unique control system of Nintendo’s Wii,” according to the publisher. In addition to the expected wizard duels, players will be able to create magical elixirs in a potion-creating class, as well as hop aboard a broomstick to take part in quidditch matches.

While the novel is the sixth of seven installments in J.K. Rowling’s wildly popular series of books, Half-Blood Prince is the sixth of eight Potter films. Faced with the prospect of tying up all the series’ loose ends in one film (and with seeing the hugely successful series come to a close), Warner Bros. Pictures has decided to split the final book in the series–Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows–into two different films, set for release in November 2010 and May 2011.

Electronic Arts has announced that it intends to release a Harry Potter video game alongside the forthcoming film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It’ll be available on a range of formats, including the holy trinity of DS, PSP, and mobile.

Oh, *spoiler alert.*
“We believe that the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince video game represents a milestone in the movie tie-in genre,” says Harvey Elliott, head of EA Bright Light studio. “The team here is working closely with the film-makers to create an immersive interactive experience that captures the story, the action, the excitement and, above all, the fun of the film.”

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