Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Just as the Harry Potter books have changed, not to mention Harry Potter himself, so have the games. "Kids have grown up with these," says Electronic Arts' senior publicist Brooke Cahalane. "The series is a little darker now, and we've changed the gameplay quite a bit. The previous games were all puzzle oriented. But this game is about action. Much bigger action."

The game in question is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, based on the fourth book and film in the wildly successful series. The increasing influence of the films is obvious. "All the kids look exactly like the film talent," she notes, showing how the character model is no longer the bespectacled youngster from the book covers. This is clearly patterned after actor Daniel Radcliffe.

"The locations are presented cinematically from the film," Cahalane notes. She says the developers worked with film producer David Heyman to get the look right. The levels are all based on locations from the movie, from the Forbidden Forest, where she slings sacs of mucus around (it's actually pus from the "Bubotuber plant"), to an underground maze called the Prefect's Bathroom. "The team also added creatures that have never been visualized." She shows off an Erkling with its long pointed nose, which is one of the creatures inspired by J.K. Rowling's published compendium of creatures from the fiction of Harry Potter.

The game consists mostly of action sequences tackled by Harry, Hermione, and Ron simultaneously. These are introduced with a tutorial in which Ron's father guides you through the first level. Later in the game, a fellow named Mad Eye Moody gives you special lessons in Defense against the Dark Arts to explain the more advanced bits of gameplay and offer optional side quest.

You can either let the computer control the other two characters, or you can have friends join you at any time for three-player cooperative action. It's got a very Diablo Jr. sensibility. "It's all about mastering the magic and combining your spells to get more powerful magic," Cahalane says.

She shows how Hermione, who she's chosen to play, can't get past a rock. But when all three characters cast a beam at the same time, their combined strength moves the rock and clears the way to advance. In each area, you collect "triwizard" shields, named after the tournament featured in the story. Some of the shields are hidden, and some can't be reached without solving puzzles or challenges. To advance to the next area, you'll need to collect a certain number of shields.

As you kill (or "dispatch", as Cahalane delicately puts it) monsters, they'll drop colored beans in eruptions of pink, purple, and blue that look like spilled breakfast cereal. Some of these beans replenish your health and mana, while others are used as currency to buy new cards.

The cards, which can be purchased or unlocked by accomplishing certain objectives, allow you to tailor the three characters between missions. Each character can "install" three cards to give him or her bonuses. There are creature cards that determine how effective a character is against a specific creature. But you can also boost a character's stamina or load up on cards that improve "jinxes", which are basically attacks, or "charms", which let you interact with the level to solve puzzles. There are 150 cards to be collected.

The story -- based closely on the book, natch -- is about a recently reinstated contest called the Triwizard Tournament, which had traditionally taken place every five years. Harry is recruited to represent Hogwarts in a set of three challenges. Each of these challenges is presented in the game after a series of action levels. Cahalane shows off Harry's airborne escape from a dragon in a challenge that involves stealing a golden egg. It's essentially a scripted flight through forests, canyons, and a town in which you avoid obstacles and aim for blue boost rings. All the while a dragon is dogging your broomstick, occasionally spitting out balls of fire.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is being developed simultaneously for multiple platforms. The PSP version, which is lagging behind by about a week, and the Nintendo DS will have wireless support for minigames. There are unique minigames on the different systems. By way of example, Cahalane shows off Yule Ball, a dancing game on the DS in which the kids, decked out in formal attire, bust out fancy moves based on how well you time your button presses. There's also a Nintendogs -lite sort of game in which you feed different foods to a purring snake-like creature called a Niffler. If you make him happy enough, he'll let you pet him. If you're into that sort of thing.

Reminiscent of games like WarioWare, Cahalane then jabs her stylus at the screen to hit chocolate frogs, scrape sand off cards to try to match them, and flick beans into pots.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire will be released on November 8th, which should give kids plenty of time to vicariously enjoy the events of the movie before it even starts.