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Review: Harry FLY!
Author: David Newton (DavidN)
Added: 27/01/2003
Overall:
Average:7/10

I have to say that you lot certainly aren't making it easy for me. Nine new games have been submitted since I last reached my limit of four yesterday, so today I'll be concentrating on games that haven't yet been reviewed by other authors.

The game comes with a truckload of DLL files included in the ZIP - cncs232, cncs32, knpg, knpres, and knps. They come to nearly a megabyte in total, and I'm sure that they're not all necessary, as this appears to be a Klik and Play game (judging from the extra files and the lack of any kind of scrolling). The Readme I found quite amusing, but some people may well take offence at it - it contains the F-word, you naughty boy.

On to the game. It starts with an intro sequence, and the background made my eyes hurt, but then it's still early. While the graphics might not be up to much, the presentation of this game is very impressive for Klik and Play - parallax fake scrolling on the title screen, no less.

This is one of those games that involve a variety of different styles of gameplay. The first level, "A Trip to Hogwarts" (I didn't even associate the name Harry with the obvious choice before I saw that), involves flying down a pseudo-3D road avoiding obstacles that stand in your way. Pretty enjoyable, though the castle appears to fall from the sky at the end.

Level Two is pretty much the same, but this time you have to avoid walls in the castle, which is totally impossible. Fortunately you're given more than enough health to make it to the door (which again drops from the sky).

Now, Level Three tripped me up. It asks you a series of questions about the Harry Potter books, and unless you're a fan you've got pretty much no chance. If you answer one wrongly, you're given a slightly easier question and sent back to the start, in a similar way to Bamboozle on Teletext, but without the option to cheat by pressing Previous Page. Oh, what a giveaway.

The fourth level gives you a hint at the start: You can shoot by pressing Shift. How nice of the author to give us the controls... I was surprised when this level was very well done - it's an R-Type, er, type side scroller. Sadly it doesn't last nearly long enough.

If you take too long on the next level's boss (i.e. more than six seconds), you're taken all the way back to the start of level four, which only serves to irritate. On this occasion, I collided with a block and vanished, never to be seen again. This didn't really bother the game, and it carried on without me, so I was forced to quit.

After returning to the same place, I continued and got past the boss to a sort of scrolling fighting game level. Strangely, the second frame of this resets itself every two seconds. I skipped on a level with the aid of a password. This level, the eighth, was like the second level but backwards. Sadly in the cut-scenes introduced here, Harry doesn't have a walking animation and slides across the floor.

Another R-Type level follows, but this time it scrolls to the left and it's longer. Particularly the effect of the sharks coming out of the water is impressive.

Once inside the tower you have two bosses to dispose of, along with the worst acted voicing since Knuckles' "Oh, no" in Sonic Adventure. The first is easy enough, but the second one flings rocks down the stairs at you which are practically impossible to avoid. You have to fight this one twice, and during the conversation there's the unfortunate line "Do you want to taste my magic wand?" Now, I don't know about you, but...

As much as I hate to say it, this is actually pretty good. Don't be put off by the graphics or the Harry Potter theme - the author has created a fun little game in this.

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