Winning Moves Top Trumps - Specials - Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire > Reviews (2)

There is much concern over at Time-Warner about what they are going to replace their "Harry Potter" franchise with, now that the boy wizard's adventures are coming to a close for the forseeable future. It's much more than the films to them, it's all that lucrative licensed merchandise they been used too. Harry and his friends have seemingly been slapped on every item possible. Winning Moves have issued a Top Trumps pack for each film. "The Goblet of Fire" is a typically attractive editon of the long running card game.

The game is played the same as other Top Trumps titles. The pack is shuffled and divided between any number of players. Each player keeps their deck secret. The player to the dealer's left begins by reading out a statistic eg. Cunning - 19. Everyone looks at the top card in their deck and whoever has the highest value in that category wins all the top cards and places them to the bottom of their deck. The winner then chooses the next statistic. If there is a tie, then all the players top cards are put in the middle and the same player as before chooses again from their next card. Catergories to compare this time are: Magic, Cunning, Courage, Wisdom and Temper.

Play continues clockwise until one person owns all the cards. However in practice the game can drag and become a bit back and forth when there are just two players left. So often we play it that the game ends when one person loses all their cards and whoever has the highest number of cards at that point is the winner.

A world of colourful characters like Potter's is a gift to the game designers. The 30 cards in this set feature: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Fleur Delacour, Gregory Coyle, Vincent Crabbe, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Gabrielle Delacour, Padma Patil, Parvati Patil, Hungarian Horntail, Rubeus Hagrid, Draco Malfoy, Viktor Krum, Madame Maxime, Cornelius Fudge, Lucius Malfoy, Professor Snape, Professor Karkaroff, Cho Chang, Professor Moody, Neville Longbottom, Albus Dumbledore, Cedric Diggory, Rita Skeeter, Barty Crouch Jr, Barty Crouch, Professor McGonagall & Arthur Weasley.

I like the look of the game. The red plastic case to hold the cards is nicely designed, snaps firmly shut and the card set works well as a memento of the film too. I've no doubt that whatever franchise Time-Warner finally discover to fill the Potter shaped hole in their accounts will get the Top Trumps treatment as well!