LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 completes the saga of Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger with a spell-binding adventure taking them to Godfric’s Hollow, Grimmauld Place, the Ministry of Magic and even Muggle London. Players will experience the stories of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Harry Potter fans with iDevices everywhere should take a look at Nevosoft’s Magic Academy. This iOS game is so much like J. K. Rowling’s popular book/film series that it almost seems like outright plagiarism. It’s not, of course, or it would never have made it into the App Store in the first place, but almost everything about it makes it feel just like Harry Potter remade into a game with a slightly different plot and characters.

This is where it all starts to change. With Prisoner of Azkaban, the Harry Potter story gets darker, the children start to grow into their roles, and a new director is not afraid to spend a quiet moment exploring the connections between characters. Prisoner is the first film that feels like it understands the story of Harry Potter, rather than trying to present a series of set pieces.

The second Harry Potter films suffers from the same problem as the first: the child actors struggle with their delivery, and get no help from their director, who’s more focused on his special effects to establish the world than on getting a performance from the people who inhabit it. Fortunately, this being the second in the series, there’s less exposition and more time devoted to the ripping action scenes that stuff the film.

Let us all be grateful the Harry Potter books were world-wide successes before Warner Brothers got their hands on the property and delivered them into the hands of Chris Columbus, a man who’s directing style can best be described as “perfunctory.” The camera’s on, you can see the actors, job’s done. Technically adept, Columbus works with special effects well, but drains all the life out of the characters in Rowling’s tale.

I’ve never read a Harry Potter book, although I certainly will before too long. I’ve also never seen a Harry Potter movie, and I don’t play with LEGOs much. Why, then, am I reviewing LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4 for Macintosh? Because I’m a fan of joy and of gaming, and because I have kids with whom I can share them both.

Is everyone geared up for the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 this Friday? So is Appletell, and so is Warner Brothers, and so we’d like to do something about that. Warner Brothers Digital Distribution has offered Appletell readers not only a free iTunes download of the Harry Potter movie of your choice, but a Harry Potter t-shirt and sorting hat, as well. To enter, just let us know what’s your favorite book in the Harry Potter series.

After pushing back the release date of Madden ’08 and Tiger Woods ’08 to September-October, EA Games has finally released the four other games they promised at WWDC 2007. Need for Speed Carbon, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Battlefield 2142 and Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars though a month late, are more »