Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

The decision that shapes this game is simple: Harry is not alone. Where the earlier EA Harry Potter titles kept the camera locked to one boy, this one hands you three. Harry, Ron and Hermione can each be controlled, and the game leans on that to structure nearly everything. Certain doors, switches and obstacles only respond to a particular character's spell, so progress means knowing who to swap to and when.

It is a clever fix for a familiar problem. Licensed games of the period often padded their length with fetch errands and corridors. Here the character switch gives the puzzles a spine, and the castle's rooms, courtyards and grounds become small problems about who is standing where. The puzzles are never hard, and an adult will see through most of them at a glance. They are aimed at younger players, and they work at that level, with a gentle pace and clear signposting.

The weaker side is combat and repetition. Spell casting against enemies is basic, and the same tricks come back often enough to feel thin by the later stretches. The camera can be awkward in tighter spaces, and the visuals, while recognisable and faithful to the film's darker look, show the usual limits of a tie-in built to a release date. Hogwarts is rendered with more care than the rushed results of that era often managed, and the sense of wandering a real place is the best thing the presentation does.

It also marks a shift in tone. The third story is the series' turn toward the gloomy, and the game tries to match it, with Dementors and Buckbeak lending moments that feel less like schoolyard errands. It does not go very deep, but it understands what it is adapting.

As a licensed game, it is better than the genre's reputation suggests. It will not hold an adult for long, yet a child handed the pad would likely find three wands more fun than one.