Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a good representation of the movie in a stylistic sense, but it does a poor job overall with the quality of the graphics. The many polygons that adorn your screen, while colorful, are extremely jagged and yield to a lot of cases of clipping. Also, the overall pace of the game is very slow due to the sluggish camera and the many instances of graphical related slow-down.

For the most part, the quality of the sound is good. However, the execution of it all is rather dismal. There are many times when you would expect a character to shout out some particular line of dialogue, only to have them remain in an uncomfortable silence. Other times, the same single line of dialogue (or sound effect) repeats over and over, quickly becoming annoying.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is EA’s big franchise title this year, and it’s about on par with what they’ve put out in the past. It’s got a lengthy Single Player mode, all the highlights and references from the movie, and some other bells and whistles (i.e. mini games) thrown in to try to up the replay value. In the end, as usual, it will mainly appeal to fans of the franchise, but not those looking for a great gaming experience.

In this rendition of Harry Potter, you play as Ron, Hermione, or Harry in a series of adventures that take you through the events of the book. You can play as any of the three characters on each level, and even though their skills are identical, there is good reason for choosing between which will be explained later.

As you progress through each level, you will come upon enemies, discover chocolate frogs, encounter obstacles, and pick up various assortments of Bertie Bott’s Every-Flavor Beans. With your wand in hand and your friends at your side, you tackle these obstacles through various means of magic. Running over the frogs yields different cards that can be used to upgrade each character, and the different beans do different things depending on their color; heal life, build a power meter, etc.

Some of the beans are also used to purchase the cards that you have collected. Between each level, you can buy the various cards that you have found and use them in different combinations to increase the capabilities of each character. This is why you would want to switch between different characters after each level; only the character you are controlling can collect the beans to purchase their respective cards.

While these cards offer some depth to the game, the unfortunate implementation of the spells does not. Each person has a basic jinx spell that can stun enemies, as well as the Accio spell that pulls distant objects to you. Also at your wand-tips are the charms; these push, pull, levitate, or douse items with water. The only problem is that you don’t get to choose which charm to use; they are condition-based and all are activated with the same button.

As you progress through the Single Player Campaign, you will unlock various mini-games. Though these are at first slightly amusing (the initial game is nothing more than "Concentration") their appeal eventually wears off. In the end, they will only serve as a novelty for Multiplayer.

Amazingly enough, the developers were on to something here with the Multiplayer aspects of the game. Not only can you start up an Ad-Hoc server for up to three people to take part in, but they don’t even need the game to play. Though you can only play the mini-games, and there is a rather large uploading process on the host’s side beforehand, this capability is one that will hopefully start to be the trend in PSP games.

Much of the antagonizing situations you find yourself in during the course of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire can be overcome through mere twitch-reflex abilities. Stunning your enemies to death is the preferred method to getting through a difficult area, but occasionally you will have to use a charm or two in order to advance. As I stated earlier, however, these situations are so scripted that little thought goes into the solution to overcoming them.

Though the layout of controls is a simple one, as I said before, the game runs a little sluggishly at times and controlling your character is more like directing their momentum than moving them yourself. Besides this, the interface is a very simple one, perhaps even too simple. Some of the different charms you can use are masked by a false sense of teamwork between you and the other characters with you; moving big logs and rocks takes the inclusion of your friends’ spells, but all you really have to do is hold down the charm button and wait for them to get around to helping you.

There is also a Magicus Extremos mode that is acquired by collecting enough blue-colored Bernie Bott's Beans. When the meter is full, you can activate this mode and cast powerful combo-charms with your friends. While filling the meter gives you something to strive for, the effect is short-lived and not quite worth the effort, and the game can be easily played without ever using this ability.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a good representation of the movie and book, and a fairly decent game. The core of the game is very simple, and because of this easily executed, but the flaws are rather apparent fairly early in the game and stick around until the end. If you’re a big fan of the franchise and don’t worry too much about the quality of gameplay, you should definitely check this game out. Otherwise, it is a weekend rental at best.