It's time for you to attend your first year at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. During your time at school, you'll need to learn spellcasting, explore the castle and the grounds thoroughly and become part of the Quadditch team.
If you have either read the book or seen the movie, the game follows the basic plotline. Much simplified, but recognisable. If you haven't read the books, you can play the game, there is enough background material to explain what you'll need to know.
Movement while Harry is on the ground is simple. You just use the arrow keys to move in a direction. While moving, Harry can also jump again just a keypress away. Once you start learning to fly, you need to coordinate Harry's movements in three dimensions (tricky) and his flight speed (even trickier). You'll be helped on your journey by Fred and George, by Nearly Headless Nick and by many other Hogwarts characters.
Harry gets to learn several spells during the game. First he must learn the wand pattern for each spell. You'll be asked to repeat the pattern four times, each needs to be more accurate and faster. Once he knows the spell, he'll enter a challenge area to use the spell. Harry instinctly knows what spell to use on what item, just point the wand correctly and release the spell. The alt key may help you find your targets.
There are a few times when Harry must battle an opponent. The primary thing is that you should keep Harry moving so the enemy can't aim effectively. Look for times when the opponent is vunerable and attack at those times. When aiming a spell at an enemy, you won't get a spell symbol, but just take aim then release.
During the game, you need to collect Bertie Bott's Every Flavoured Bean and Wizard Cards. The critical one is the cards, to finish the game correctly, you should have found 24 cards. A lot of them are in hard to get to places. The Beans are everywhere, I must have had more than 400 of them when I finished the game.
The final 'boss' fight. Exceedingly difficult compared to other game challenges. He has an attack pattern which sometimes leaves him open. You can make the wobbly pillars fall on him. Once you've hit him with pillars, keep moving. Cast a spell on the mirror only when a) he isn't moving and b) he isn't trying to fry you with his spell.
Fixed save points that write over your current copy of the game. Can make it difficult to ensure that you have picked up necessary items, in particular the Wizard Cards.
Much of the game is a matter of timing, and some coordination. If you have been thinking about trying action games, but haven't, this one is a good starter. It follows the storyline closely, much of the action is easy once you work out the trick behind it.
As a final rating of the game, buy Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone from Amazon for any Harry fans in the family. There is a lot to explore at Hogwart's so get on your broomstick and go for it.
The voice actors in the game sometimes sound just like those from the movie. I didn't spot any names from the movie but the character voices match what you expect.
There are several cheat codes you can find on the web, the only one I used was HarryGetsFullHealth which is very tricky to type in. Still, it saved me from restarting the chase of Malfoy on a broomstick, which was very good.
It still bothers me that the Americans needed to rename the books from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Anyone who has read much about alchemy would have read about the Philosopher's Stone. It's a well known goal for alchemists. I hadn't heard of a Sorcerer's Stone that has similar properties.