by Lori Cunningham

One of the top 10 gifts for Christmas for kids we recommended in December was the PlayStation’s Wonderbook Book of Spells, which is a great game to have if you have a Harry Potter in the family.  My ten-year-old daughter is a huge fan and has read all 7 of them and has watched the various movies countless times.

We first reported on the Wonderbook Book of Spells for the Move motion controllers with PlayStation when we saw it debuted during the big E3 gaming conference last year.  In fact, we were so impressed, we named it as one of the Best Upcoming Family Games from the show.

Using the PlayStation 3 Move controller and a nondescript “book” with no words that comes with the Book of Spells game, you can interact with the game on your TV making magical things happen with the spells you are learning. In front of you, the book and Move controller are boring.  But look at your TV and instead you are holding a Harry Potter type wand and see a book full of color and vitality.  You can write with fire, conjure up dragons, and making mystical things happen. It is truly a fascinating concept.  Sony worked closely with R.K. Rowling to develop the book and all of it’s spells.  Many of the these spells are the basis from which the Harry Potter movie series were based on.

To play the game, you need to ensure you have the Move camera and Move controller ready.  Place the book that comes with the game in front of you and ensure you can see yourself in the Move camera which displays on the TV.  After calibrating your Move controller, you’re ready to play.

The Wonderbook itself has no real colors on it, except for blue and light blue.  Yet, when you look at the screen, it appears to be an old rustic book with a lot of dust on it.  You are instructed to dust it off with your hands and you actually see the dust fly off of it while you’re doing from the TV.

There are five chapters in the book to learn, each of them with new spells to learn and mini-games to master your newfound skill.  Although you learn the latin-like words of each spell, the key is learning the movements of handling your wand to invoke various spells.

To make the fire spell, you draw a Z with your wand.  To invoke water from your wand you make a wave like motion.  Want to make birds appear?  Make your wand flash a bird-like “m” and birds hover around.  To levitate items, using the “Wingardium Leviosa” spell, you simply make a J with your wand.  After you master a skill, you receive a letter telling you that you’ve mastered the spell and you earn points as a result.  It’s important to memorize the spells and their movements as you will be tested on them at the end of each chapter.

This game is truly modeled after the likeness of a book, the book is read to you as you learn various spells.  There are also a few old-fashioned plays available throughout the book where you can sit back and watch how a spell was originally created.  There’s even some audience participation where you can make fire or make the audience laugh, etc.  As you listen or read along the book, various 3D objects appear to either look at or play with, according to which spell you’re learning.

At the end of each of the five chapters, you are given a test, which is a game where you combat mythical animals and objects.  You are required to remember the last 4-5 spells you just learned.  I thought they were going to show a list or remind me of the spell, but there were no visible clues of any kind.

Unfortunately, my memory isn’t the best, so I tried a number of spells before getting one right.  But the game tells you that you are invoking the wrong spell and encourages you to try again.  There is even a button you can press to get some help if you absolutely need it.

I noticed that when I started learning chapter 2 spells, I was asked to invoke 1 or 2 of the spells I learned from Chapter 1.  This is helpful to ensure you don’t forget the skills you learned before.

Pros:

• A fun, entertaining way to learn Harry Potter spells
• Engaging games to help you learn the spells
• Stories that give the background history of how some spells came into being
• It’s really amazing how the big and your Move wand become cool wizardry objects on the TV screen
• You do feel like your family room is transformed into Hogwarts Hall, the way the camera captures your room and adds Hogwarts decor to it
• The WonderBook book itself can be used for other Wonderbook titles down the road

Cons:

• Can be frustrating at times, when you’re not sure what to do
• Does not have an overlying story that pulls all the spells together
• Does not have any other resemblance to the Harry Potter movies other than the spells themselves
• It’s only a one-person game

A Mom’s Perspective

I enjoyed playing the Wonderbook Book of Spells.  While I’ll admit, the game looked a bit intimidating and at times I did struggle, I eventually figured out what is going on and how to complete the tasks.  I originally had my Harry Potter loving daughter play the game and could see her struggle.  But later on she invited her best Harry Potter loving friend and they tried the game together.  Although it’s a one-person game, you can take turns trying out the various spells, and truthfully, that is the best way to play this game…with a friend or family member.

I enjoyed levitating a jar filled with eyeballs in mid air, them dropping it to the floor, breaking it and watching the eye balls scatter.  I placed a rather large toad on my head, sprayed the Wonderbook with water from my wand, set ugly beetles on fire, and even tackled warding off snake-like vines away from me with a light at the end of my wand.  Now that’s something you don’t do everyday!

The Wonderbook Book of Spells game has been a fun immersive way to share in my daughter’s love for Harry Potter and in a sense, brought the fun alive as we learned new skills, my daughter explained certain aspects to me that stemmed from the movie, and we laughed a lot as we clumsily misfired some of our spells.

The adventures are magical and a fun diversion away from the typical video games.  I look forward to future Wonderbook games, as I can see their potential in many other topics and making learning fun for kids.

*  I was given a Wonder book of Spells Move Bundle as a member of the PlayStation Family.  All opinions are my own.

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