System:GC(reviewed), XBox, PC, PS2, GBA.
Developer/Publisher:EA Games
Category:Sports
Rating:91%
Multiplayer:Two Player Simultaneous

Quidditch. The most popular game in the wizarding world. Who would have guessed it would have been revealed to muggles(non-magic people, according to the Harry Potter books)? Now, for some people, the name Harry Potter immediately draws a feeling of anger and resentment. But you really wouldn\'t be able to tell Quidditch World Cup was of Harry Potter by the magic in it. There is none. It\'s really just a sports game with the Harry Potter theme. (\'House\' names, characters, flying on brooms.) It\'s very simple to learn and play, and very fun.

Graphics

Quidditch World Cup has some of the best graphics I\'ve seen in a while. There is no \'jumping\', and the little movies that play when you do a special move or score are really cool. It\'s almost as if you\'re really there! The players look good, the stadiums are planned out well, and the only fault is that the crowd in the stadiums are flat little 2-D people. Overall, I\'d say that the graphics get a 95/100.

Sound

The sound is also excellent. The music is exceptional. Also, sometimes,e.g, if you play the French team, they\'ll say something in French, which I just thought was cool. Everytime you get a score, a sound comes on. Now, sometimes, the speech doesn\'t exactly \'fit\' with the mouth, but I haven\'t really seen too many games that do. In the little movies,the sounds are fit with the right things, and the game also has commentary, which is really neat, and it always tells you the players that have the \'quaffle\' and who tackled and whatnot, and so that\'s really awesome, too. Overall, I would rate the sound a 95/100.

Story Line

This game does not have what kind of levels you would usually think of; instead it has rounds. Every round has four pairs of teams playing, each one different. With a choice of 13 different teams to choose from (9 international teams, 4 Hogwarts \'House\' teams), it gets pretty exciting, trying to be on top. You start off at Hogwarts, basically a boarding school for witches and wizards. All of the students are divided up into 4 different \'Houses\', which have their own quidditch team. Before we get any farther, let me explain the game of quidditch. Quidditch is the most popular game played by wizards and witches around the globe.

The object of the game is to get the ball, or \'quaffle\' through one of the three goals. There are seven players on a team, the most important being the keeper(who protects the three goals), the seeker(who tries to capture the snitch, which we\'ll talk about in just a minute), and the beaters(who hit the bludgers, which are also coming up). The coolest part, I think, is that you ride on brooms while doing this. Another ball is the snitch, a tiny golden ball that can fly very, very fast that the seekers have to catch. When one of the seekers catch the snitch, the game is over, and the victorious seeker\'s team gets 150 points.(Oh, and speaking of points, every time the quaffle goes in one of the hoops, the team that got the quaffle in gets 10 points.) The last balls are the bludgers. Your beaters try to hit these bludgers towards the opposing players, so you can get the quaffle. After you choose what House you want to be in, you have to defeat all of the other houses. After that, you choose one of the 9 international teams to be, and you play them to victory. There are so many teams with so many weaknesses and strengths, the game keeps going on and on! All said and done, I would rate the story line a 90/100.

Game Play

The game play is very smooth, easy to handle, and easy to learn. It\'s just the basics: Control stick to turn, A to pass, B to shoot. There are also combos that you can do using L and R, but I won\'t get into all that. It\'s very simple, effective, but sometimes challenging when you get into the different combos, and special moves! All in all, I would rate the gameplay 90/100.

A.I.

Truthfully, the A.I. is sometimes pretty wimpy. Like, a lot of times, I\'ll score 370 points, when the computer has 20! Though it\'s a very fun, and quite challenging most of the time. Overall, I\'d rate the A.I. 75/100

Appropriateness

There is nothing in the game that I would consider inappropriate about this game. To me, it\'s just a sports game that\'s based on Harry Potter, except with no magic or language in it. Some people would consider anything with Harry Potter written on it to be full of wicca and the occult, which is a lot of times true, but not in this case. It has the characters in it, but not the books. I would have to rate the appropriateness 100/100.

Final Ratings

Graphics---------95 Sound------------95 Storyline--------90 Gameplay---------90 A.I.-------------75 Appropriateness-100

TOTAL: 91/100