Product Description

Starting with any one of the four Hogwarts House teamsincluding Harry Potter's Gryffindorsplayers learn Quidditch basics with five original challenges and the Hogwarts House Cup competition. Once completed, players can enter the international World Cup tournament, choosing from a range of international teams including the USA, Bulgaria featuring Victor Krum, the hard-hitting Nordics, England, Japan, Germany, France, and Australia. Each national team sports its own Quidditch gear, has a unique

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11178 in Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Model: 14633146578
• Released on: 2003-10-29
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platform: GameCube
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .50" h x 5.50" w x 7.50" l, .35 pounds

Features

• Collect Quidditch Cards gained from challenges completed, moves made, and games won. These in turn unlock special moves, all of which help players achieve the ultimate honor of winning the Quidditch World Cup.
• Stunning 3D environments and special effects.The first and only way to experience complete Quidditch matches. Climb aboard a flying broomstick and take flight to engage in exciting competition high above the Quidditch pitch.
• Play as any one of four Hogwarts Houses and numerous characters from the books, including Harry Potter (as a Seeker on the Gryffindor team), crafty Draco Malfoy from Slytherin, and international Quidditch stars such as Bulgarias Victor Krum.
• Play all the Quidditch positions and execute all the high-flying moves: control the three Chasers to score ten-point goals with the Quaffle, the two club-wielding Beaters to control the two dangerous Bludgers, and the Keeper to guard the three goal rings

Customer Reviews

Docked two stars because of JK's strange scoring system.
I bought the Gamecube version of Quidditch World Cup so that my ten-year-old daughter and I could play it together on our widescreen TV. For the most part, it's very fun, and it DOES have a 16:9 anamorphic widescreen mode for those of you with widescreen TV's. I wish more Gamecube games had this feature. Very cool.

The single player game is quite fun, and worth the price of admission for sure. That's been covered in other reviews. But I have to cover the two-player aspect here, and that's where it gets docked a couple of stars:

In the books and movies, the scoring system (150 points for the snitch) always seemed strange to me. It was as if the only thing that mattered was catching the snitch. The only time that the rest of the game would be important is if it dragged on for an unusually long time and was a particularly high-scoring game. Without that, the rest of the game is just killing time until the race for the snitch happens.

I'd hoped that EA would somehow come up with a gameplay mechanic where the rest of the game meant something. They didn't.

When you play Quidditch World Cup, it's even worse than in the movies. There's actually no way to play a game where the base score matters. No match ever lasts long enough to score highly enough for the snitch capture to become strategic. The snitch always appears too soon, before the base game has had a chance to really make a difference. And when the snitch finally appears, it's the end of the game no matter what. Someone has to catch it, you're locked into the snitch chase until the capture.

In addition, the snitch capture itself is iffy. Between the two players, one player almost always has more speed boost power than the other. The player with the most boost power always wins the snitch capture. Frustratingly, there is nothing in the in-game tutorials which tells you how to gain more boost power. You must crack open the manual to glean the following information: Boost power is increased by performing passes and combo moves during the regular game.

What this means to the game... Since the base game score itself is meaningless, and only the snitch capture matters, then the gameplay during the base game becomes a competition for who can do the most passes and combo moves. Not who can score more goals. Making the base game score even more meaningless.

I think that EA could have done a few things to make the snitch capture more strategic:

1. Allow the base game to last longer. Don't make the snitch appear so soon. Allow for higher scoring games.

2. Allow the snitch chase to be "missed" instead of railroading you into a capture. Make it so that if you miss the snitch, the rest of the base game continues a while before the next snitch appearance.

3. Allow for the two players to have a more "even" competition when racing for the snitch. There is a key which supposedly lets you "barge" the other player during the race (again, only mentioned in the manual, it's not in the in-game tutorials), but I never saw it work.

However, with the above off my chest, I can wholeheartedly recommend the game for single player play. The above complaints only count for a two-player game. In single player mode, it is great fun, will provide many hours of great gameplay, and very much worth the price. My daughter loves it.

Five Stars... For Potter fans at least.
In my head, I've been clamoring for this game since I first read through the Potter books in 2001. Quidditch is simply too well-realized a sport not to enjoy a video game incarnation; now, finally, we Muggles can play it whenever we wish.

From the first tutorial training challenges, Quidditch World Cup is immensely satisfying. The character animations and special effects are breathtaking, always worth the brief cutscene following any special move. Controlling the three chasers (the only position over which you have direct control until the end of a match) is simple and intuitive, though passing can get tricky at times. Whacking a bludger at an opposing chaser is always a sadisitic good time, and chasing down the snitch at the end of the match is appropriately exciting.

Are there problems with Quidditch World Cup? Absolutely. Most glaring is the utter lack of customization options, a staple for any respectable sports title. There is no way to slow down or speed up the snitch meter (when the meter fills up, the snitch chase begins, thus ending the match), and no storage of team or player statistics. These are minor gripes, and EA has plenty of time to resolve them in a sequel. All in all, these problems would probably only be an issue to non-Potter fans, who won't buy the game anyway.

All said and done, Quidditch World Cup is a charming and addictive realization of the fictional sport. And seeing as it's the only way any of us is ever going to get to take a turn on a Firebolt, it's at the very least a must-rent for Potter fans.

The best gaming experiance ever known to man.
This game was the best addition to my nintendo gaming systems! After playing the Hogwarts School games for every nintendo system, (gamecube and gameboy)I was furious at how boring and simple the quidditch games were compared to how excited I got while reading the quidditch scenes in the seiries. This game Interested me at the time they were advertizing it on the television because it was only concentrated on quidditch and the trailer looked like it would be like a real great quidditch game.
The best part of this game is the world cup where the player can become the controller of an international quidditch team and fight there way to the top of the league. Befor you can get to the world cup you first have to beat the Hogwarts cup, which seemed to me to be like an enterance into the controls of the game. In this game you can play as all of the Hogwarts house teams and some of the international quidditch teams mentioned in the Harry Potter sieries. One team that you can not play as is Ireland which is dissapionting to me because it is my favorite tem that was in the Harry Potter sieries because they throuhgh out fake gold coins to the crowd of the Quidditch World Cup in the fourth book, as a joke.
The controls in this game are set up so that they are very easy to us while it still looks complicated on the screen. This game is set up like a Tony Hawk game where you buy new tricks the better you get and the more tasks you complete. The game has great graphics and teh best audio in any of the Harry Potter games. You can play this game no matter your gaming level since it is made up of differnt levels determined by how many quidditch cards you have or the broom you fly.
Even if you do not know what quidditch is get this game you will learn fast because you will be playing it so much!