Editor's note: The fourth Harry Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," opens nationwide today. Here's a look at the video game based on the previous film.

Game: "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban"

Console: PlayStation 2 (also out for Xbox, Gamecube, Game Boy Advance, PC)

Developer/publisher: EA Games

Genre: Children's/action

Number of players: One

ESRB: E for everyone

Premise: Harry Potter's third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is marred by the appearance of feared criminal Sirius Black, the escaped prisoner involved in Potter's parents' death. Black is making great efforts to reach and presumably kill the young wizard in training.

Game play: Like most games aimed toward a child audience, "Prisoner of Azkaban" is quite simple. There are infinite lives to be had, and the simplicity of task completion will most likely bore most gamers older than 12. However, there are many little techniques to be appreciated.

For example, you aren't relegated to playing as only the title character. Controls can be switched to Potter's best friends, Ron and Hermione. In addition, each character has special abilities that must be used for certain tasks: Harry can complete athletic feats such as bounding over big gaps, Ron is better at searching for hidden items and secret passageways and Hermione is able to fit in smaller spaces than her male counterparts.

There's also an inventory screen that lets you access items and see your progress in the collection of items, spells and maps. As you play the game, you will collect Folio Universitas, cards that detail the famous and infamous characters from the book series. This will surely be a delight for the books' die-hard fans and game's target audience.

If playing the story mode becomes a chore, or you just want a break, there are several mini-games to enjoy such as dueling with teams of other wizards. If you own a USB Eye Toy, you can also play the after-school events mode.

The good/bad: One really good thing is the game's design. The character models resemble quite nicely the actors from the movie, and the backgrounds are nice as well, with good use of color and lighting effects. The bad thing is that for a game involving magic, there's nothing very magical. The special effects aren't dazzling enough to fully wow the child audience.

My take: "Prisoner of Azkaban" is a by-the-numbers execution of a cash cow being milked. There's nothing really great about it, while nothing brings it down too much, either.

Jeremy Castillo is a student at Windward Community College and editor of the college's newspaper, Ka 'Ohana.