Wannabe wizards should play Electronic Arts' newest adventure, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Based on the popular novel and upcoming film, players get to explore a painstakingly recreated Hogwarts completing missions, uncovering secrets, collecting 125 different crests and earning badges, but that barely scratches the surface of this surprisingly good movie-based game. In addition to wandering around, players will enjoy an addictive potion mixing game (with 16 to create), blast through checkpoints to catch the Golden Snitch in Quidditch and hit opponents with magic spells -- like the opponent-blasting Expelliarmus - in the enjoyable Dueling Club.

Compared to the violence at Hogwarts, America's inner city schools seem tame.

On top of that, navigating Hogwarts gets easier as players can summon Nearly Headless Nick to guide them to their next objective. While EA did a poor job fleshing out the story, some of the sound-alikes aren't nearly as good as the film's cast (Snape doesn't even sound close) and a few facial animations look bizarre, but for the most part, Half-Blood Prince is one of the best Harry Potter games we've played.

Chris Buffa is GameDaily's senior editor. He enjoys easy achievement points, first person shooters and starting trouble.