This inevitable game of the movie of the book follows a depressingly familiar pattern.

Like many film tie-ins before it, Harry’s latest videogame adventure feels sloppy and unfinished. Graphics are bland, cutscene videos are embarrassingly poor and the gameplay is unfocused and all too easy.

It starts with half an hour’s worth of tedious tidying up chores. The bafflingly dull opening sequence is supposed to help the player learn some basic spells, but even very young gamers will see through this ham-fisted attempt to get the ball rolling.

Unsurprisingly, you get to play as the teen wizard for most of the game, though there are brief interludes where you assume the roles of more experienced, more powerful magic wielders.

Characters can be controlled adequately using the keyboard and mouse but Order of the Phoenix is also available for Playstation, Xbox 360 and Wii, and, as with many multi-platform games, it plays best with a gamepad.

The PC release is probably the best looking of all the versions available (assuming you have a decent graphics card), but that’s not saying much. Character models, particularly, are a bit weak. The main characters look fairly faithful to their on-screen equivalents, but they all have that unsettling, dead-behind-the-eyes look that we’ve come to know and hate from other games that try to render famous faces, such as the FIFA football series.

Order of the Phoenix’s worst crime, perhaps, is its total failure to communicate any kind of coherent plot. Given that the original source material is a heavily story-driven novel this actually something of a feat. Suffice to say, if you haven’t read the book (or seen the film), then you’re going to spend most of the time trying to work out what on earth is going on.

It is, of course, highly unlikely that anyone who has an interest in this game hasn’t already digested the Phoenix story in some shape or form. And we’ll admit that there’s a fair amount here to please Harry’s many fans. The characters themselves might look a bit weird but at least they sound authentic, with most of the Potter actors reprising their roles.

The real star of the show, however, is Hogwarts itself, rendered here in a loving homage to the movie version of the famous magic school. Aside from the main story-driven game, you can spend a lot of time exploring the school’s nooks and crannies, discovering its secrets and unlocking prizes in the Room of Rewards.

There’s some fun to be had, then, but it’s mostly a very formulaic and slightly boring game. Even lifelong fans and younger players will quickly tire of this lacklustre, by-the-numbers movie conversion.

Vista compatible: Yes