A wonderful game for a youngster, but repetitive to the point of annoyance for older fans of J.K. Rowling's series.
Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone (or Philosopher's, for the rest of the review, it'll be Sorcerer's) starts off with a very simple ink on parchment introduction to the story up until your very first class in Defense Against The Dark Arts. That alone made me mad, as that was a nice chunk of the story just left aside like dust. Anyways, through out these classes you learn different charms to progress through challenges and mazes in the game. You learn them by following a tracing of a shape of a charm within a time limit. From then on all you need to do is click and the spell is cast . These challenges and mazes come after the classes and are very simple and quite repetitive. Throughout the corridors of Hogwarts, you will find Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans to collect. The only use it seems for these are to trade them in for trading cards that depict and give a one line reading for what a witch or wizard did. IN the game, there are two Quidditch games to play. Both are near impossible to fail at, the only way is by getting hit too many times in the air. The keyboard dominant controls make the flying sequences much more difficult than it should be but it is still relatively easy to catch the Snitch.
There is a lot of story missing in the game, so much that the story cutscenes seem more like filler than the challenges do. There's not even a mention of Voldemort before you face him at the end.
The graphics are subpar for 2001. In a forest scene, there are times where key items such as logs signs, or even Harry disappears behind 2D Tree Walls they should be in front of. At another sequence with the Cloak of Invisibility, you can see the front of Harry's torso and the legs underneath his robe, even though you see in a third person perspective. The best graphical use is in lighting and shadows, and in the spell effects.
The greatest attribute the game has is in it's sound. The voice acting and narration are good and solid, the voice acting is mostly very good for sound-a-likes. The musical score is always appropriate, however there are too few tracks and even the good score gets repetitive.
There are only two other things the game has to offer, flying practice and a Quidditch League play mode. the practice has you redoing Madam Hooch's flying lesson from the main game, while the League mode is a string of Quidditch games with the same difficulty as those in the storyline.
Overall, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is a game better suited for youngsters looking to part with the largely educational games and try the entertainment games for a size. Otherwise, the game is far too short, too repetitive, and very easy in all aspects.