EA talks about Harry Potter Wii

This is an excerpt from from an  interview with EA related to the upcoming Nintendo Wii game Harry Potter Wii

IGN: In The Order of the Phoenix, Harry, Hermione and Ron are growing up. How has that been reflected in the game?

Harvey Elliott: Well, for starters the obvious change is that they are visually older. We facial scanned each of the actors as they came off set to get up-to-the-minute data to ensure that they look exactly like the characters they portray in the movie. We also see their magic has improved and they are becoming more powerful wizards. And finally, with the vast majority of the cast reprising their roles from the movies, their characters really come out in the game — as a result, they are definitely more determined and a little less prepared to listen to ‘authority.’

IGN: Are you satisfied with the new Wii controls? How are the Wii remote and nunchuk utilized?

Harvey Elliott: At some point in the development we just wondered whether Nintendo started their prototyping around the Wii controller by asking themselves “what would be perfect for a Harry Potter game?”. I mean, seriously, it’s a wand! So as the player waves the wand around, the game recognizes the gesture and casts the spell. It really feels like you’re casting magic. If you want to set an object on fire, you simply flick the wand quickly from left to right, as if you were striking a match. If you want to levitate an object in the world using wingardium leviosa, just raise the wand and the nunchuk together and the object will lift, and then moving the wand around will move the object in the world. It’s pretty much exactly how you would imagine it. And in combat it works the same way - if you want to knock your opponent down, just give them a shove, or to take their wand away, snatch backwards - it just feels great. Because the control is a wand in Harry’s hand, we’ve even found that you don’t need the sensor bar to cast magic, and instead only use it for optional fine-targeting, which just adds to your immersion in the game.

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I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan, but this sounds interesting if not fun.