Video Game Bytes: Pangya: Fantasy Golf and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: The Video Game

Here’s an abbreviated look at some multimedia titles for the family.

• Pangya: Fantasy Golf (from Tomy Corp., for the PlayStation Portable, $29.99) — Anyone who wants to know what it’s like to challenge a genius magician in love on the back nine gets his chance in this role-playing golf game.

In action where customizing a Japanese anime-style avatar is as important as sinking a birdie putt, the game features 1,300 ways to tweak 18 playable characters as they compete on nine 18-hole courses.

A silly story helps hook the nongolfer in the majority of the action where the player follows an avatar’s life through rounds of the sport.

Specifically, the magical Pangya Island was dying due to sorcery from the Dark Lord. A hero from Earth used a magical ball and staff to plug a hole leaking magical energy. This tradition is now celebrated in island tournaments.

Besides playing rounds in some pretty environments, players get a tutorial from a fairy who controls space and time, use a living shopping bag named Papel to store and access powerups, and compete against the likes of a pirate, a well-dressed tennis celebrity and corporate buffoon.

Much like many a golf game, hitting a ball requires the player set the power and accuracy of a shot by clicking at the right time within a moving meter.

As his wins and successes mount, he gets Pang, the currency used to buy items, including new equipment, clothes and powers.

Those bored with the story mode can win licenses to unlock tournaments and up to eight players in the same room can compete wirelessly.

If Hogwarts had a golf curriculum, it would be on Pangya Island.

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: The Video Game (from Electronic Arts for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii, $49.99). I have controlled the boy wizard through various entertainment consoles over the last seven years, and his latest adventure ranks only slightly above magical mediocrity.

With a bare-bones tie-in to the latest film’s major plot points — Voldemort causes more trouble and Draco Malfoy is a bigger nuisance — a player again manhandles Harry Potter to explore and interact with students and staff during his sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Getting around is much easier thanks to Nearly Headless Nick, a great-looking floating apparition, who, with the click of a help button, can lead the hero through very complex environments, including winding staircases, the herbology classroom and Professor Dumbledore’s office.

Story Continues →