[NOTD] News for the day 12/04/07

Xbox360.com has received five great new screencaps from the Order of the Phoenix video game. They depict the trio throughout various parts of the school, Dumbledore and Voldemort in the final battle, and the grand staircase within Hogwarts.

Additionally, EA's French division has updated their website with the cover art for the French OOTP video game. You can see that right here in Mugglnet's gallery. Thanks to UniversHarryPotter.com for the tip!

TLC UPDATE:

Swish and Wiimote!.. Well it's not quite what Professor Flitwick would have taught at Hogwarts, but tonight, in addition to those new screenshot photos, IGN.com now has a feature online regarding the special Wiimote wand for use will playing the upcoming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix video game on the Nintendo Wii console.

IGN reports the following on this cool control device that players use during the game:

"The Wii-specific controls for the game seem remarkably well put together. Once Harry's wand is drawn, the Wiimote can be used to directly control the spells you cast. Everything is handled through accelerometers; there is no pointing in the game whatsoever. Any of the game's spells can be cast quickly and easily, merely by a flick of the wrist. Thrust the Wiimote forward, and Harry will propel an object away from himself. Motion upward with both the Wiimote and nunchuk, and Harry will cause an object to levitate in the air.

Once you have an object floating, you can move the Wiimote around in 3D space to reposition it. This actually worked better than we had assumed it would, although it is not yet perfect. There are puzzles that require placing objects in specific places, which is somewhat irritating because of the inaccuracies involved in the motion controls. Despite this, it was a lot of fun to wave the Wiimote in the air and see Harry react in turn. Hopefully the spell system sees some refinement before the game's release because they were already enjoyable, even at this early state.
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As we've been reporting, the game is due the week before the release of the fifth Potter movie on July 13. The Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix video game will be available on the the Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation2, PSP, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance, and Windows PC platforms, and is available for pre-order here in our Cauldron Shop.

A new article by the AP examines the rise of Harry Potter fan sites, and includes a bunch of quotes from MuggleNet webmaster Emerson Spartz. The piece states, "Spartz and his many fellow Webmasters are looking back at their own place on this record-breaking ride. The story of Potter has all along been a story of its fans, and, like everything else about Potter, the fan sites are in a special class, for their size, and for their influence."

Back in March, Scholastic announced their promotional plans for Deathly Hallows which included a Knight Bus tour. Scholastic has now released the dates and locations for their 37-stop tour along the East Coast of the United States. From the press release:

In each location where the bus stops, fans will be invited to board the Knight Bus and share on video their thoughts and feelings about the Harry Potter books. Select video clips from each location will be uploaded for viewing and sharing on http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter. Additionally, each person will receive a unique username and password so that they can view their own video online.

You can find the tour dates right here on Scholastic's website.

In an interview conducted on the Order of the Phoenix set last fall, producer David Heyman discussed what cuts they made to the film, his take on the film's darkness and intensity, and director David Yates.

"You see a director with real strong point of view. A really idiosyncratic sensibility. He is someone who grounds things. He makes everything seem very real and authentic, and that's very important for this... This is a film which is grounded, I think, more in reality in the sense that it's about a revolution, in a way. War is upon us, or is getting closer, as Voldemort has returned. Just like the resistance movements, the French resistance movements of the 1940s, an underground movement is formed, Dumbledore's Army, to provide the kids with an opportunity to learn how to defend themselves. And it was important that that be treated with real verisimilitude, real truth, and I think David Yates brings that."

There are just a few open spots left on the Sorcerer Trip for MuggleNet.com fans, organized by HP Fan Trips. If you are living in the UK, or are planning a trip there around the time of the tour and you've been thinking about signing up for this trip that takes you to various Potter-themed locations across the United Kingdom, now is definitely the time to sign up.

Find more details at the link above!