[Editor's Note: This article was written by site contributor Darthspud.]
If I could turn baaccckkk timmmmeeee! *ahem* So, let’s set the scene… Flash back eight years or so, young I was given a second-hand PS1 with a copy of Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone. You may scoff (how dare you!), but being the book nerd I was (and still am) and having just seen said movie, my hype meter was through the roof. As soon as I got the chance, I was properly immersed into the land of witches, wizards, and noseless arseholes… And at the time the blocky, unrecognisable and blurry models of all the characters looked like witchcraft (hey, hey guys! WITCHCRAFT! Geddit?!) to me, and the sweeping camera made me stare in awe.
One of the first memories I can remember of this game is how, even then, I got pissed off at the lack of a jump button, with young Harry jumping off of bookcases at a completely crazy angle. The game controls were broken, and I suspect even now I’d fail at everything. But I loved it anyway! The one thing I still love now is how Hogwarts-y it was, with long antique corridors and gothic little touches; it was love at first sight.
Even the Quidditch was rather good. It was a “fly through hoops to engage quick time events” affair, but the sight of an evil Slytherin chasing you down then ramming you out of the way was intense. And there was stealth! C’mon, and invisibility cloak plus a video game equals an obvious stealth scene, and who wouldn’t want to run away from Mr. Filch and his bloody annoying cat?
But then it got bad - really bad. After about a quarter of the game, it lost all its Hogwarts-y goodness, and it turned into another stupid cash-grab: you got sent into the sewers to get a troll, went through a maze to find a cat, and somehow ended up having to parkour over lava in the Forbidden Forest. I mean what the fuck!? The only good moment I can remember from that moment on is taking a trip to Diagon Alley, where all of the love rushed back in a fleeting moment of awesome. Almost every shop they put into the alley had a side quest, from sneaking up on chickens for the Apocathery to rearranging all of the wands at Ollivander’s.
And nearer draws the end to this story… While at Gringott’s, for some reason Harry took control of the cart that took you to your vault, and FUCK was that hard for a six year-old. I was stuck on that level for three goddamn years! And then we arrived in the year 2011, when I got the nostalgia bug…and I did it - I actually finished the mission! I was ecstatic! I smiled at the TV madly, and I can only imagine I looked like the Cheshire Cat. So along comes Hagrid, and he takes me to Hogwarts…where the game crashes. Permanently.
FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU-
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