Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4

If you've played one of the past LEGO games -- Star Wars, Batman or Indiana Jones -- the setup to LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 should be pretty easy to get the hang of it. Here, you're going to play through the defining moments of the first four movies and you're going to do it as little LEGO pieces in a little LEGO world. So if the play style is the same, what's so great about LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4?

For beginners, the spell system is a fresh idea. LEGO Batman had different suits for the main characters and LEGO Indiana Jones had the whip and a few other items, but LEGO Harry Potter equips the kids with a number of magical spells that each have their own specific purpose. Wingardium Leviosa is the most basic and the most useful. You use it to lift things up such as boxes and crates. Lumos scares away attacking plants, Riddikulus knocks back your worst fear, and so on.

I had a great time using these incantations. Levitating books back onto the shelf and rearranging LEGO blocks to make stairs was fun, but it was the wond
erment of what I'd learn next that really kept me going. See, because these spells are so particular in what they do in the LEGO Harry Potter world, the game's teasing you with what's coming later. You'll walk down the hill to Hagrid's and pass Cornish Pixies holding items just out of your reach and treasure chests with locks that appear to be unbreakable. You know that you're going to learn how to best these challenges, but you don't know when.

This is all part of another thing I love about LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4: the hub world is back and it's better than ever. Four years of levels could get confusing, but the game does an excellent job of keeping you on track while letting you explore at will. You always start in the Leaky Cauldron and can replay a level with the characters you've unlocked to Diagon Alley to enter cheat codes and spend your studs on new characters. If you want to jump back into the story you can head into Hogwarts and start following Nearly Headless Nick to the next mission.

Well at the moment it has a £25.00 discount and the price is only £19.99. You can find it on PS3, Xbox 360, DS/DSi, PSP, PC and Wii!

IGN rate it as 8.5 but will you buy it and rate as well?

Look below for the gameplay video: