Sony releases Wonderbook: Book of Spells for PlayStation Move on November 13

J K Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, has teamed up with Sony to bring a new Harry Potter game for the PlayStation 3. The PS3 game, titled Wonderbook: Book of Spells, combines reading with augmented reality gaming. Book of Spells is the first release for the Wonderbook peripheral, and is the first product from the joint venture of Sony and Rowling’s Pottermore. Book of Spells features new writing from Rowling. The game allows you to cast spells with your PlayStation Move motion controller, which becomes your magic wand.

Wonderbook will bring a thousand stories in one physical book with a new series of adventures. Wonderbook will bring exclusive content to the PlayStation 3 by using augmented reality technology through the PlayStation Eye camera. Wonderbook: Book of Spells costs Rs 2,799 and requires the PlayStation Move. The game will be available on November 16.

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You can cast spells from the Harry Potter series

Sony had recently announced more content for the PlayStation Move through DLC for last year’s Portal 2. The DLC is centred on the use of the motion control controller for the PlayStation 3 – the PlayStation Move. The DLC was released on Tuesday and costs $9.99 (roughly Rs 530) and PlayStation Plus subscribers are able to buy the DLC at a 30 percent discount. Sony has released a trailer for the Portal in Motion DLC.

The trailer shows some new additions to the gameplay of Portal 2, including the ability to control the distance at which you hold objects, altering the geometry of objects by stretching and squashing them, and the ability to sustain and drag a portal around. The new levels have been designed specifically with the Move controller in mind.

Back in August, Valve had released an update for the game that added co-operative gameplay to levels created with the Perpetual Testing Initiative. This would allow players to create and share levels that can be played co-op. To promote the new co-op feature in the Perpetual Testing Initiative, Valve has given everyone who already owns a copy of Portal 2 a discount coupon that would get them another copy of the game at 75 percent off. Another major feature added to the game in the update is ‘Quick Play’, which creates never-ending, automatically generated playlists of the top rated maps in a variety of category.  All these updates are completely free.

Portal 2 is a game in the first person perspective that is, surprisingly, not an action game. The game focuses on puzzles revolving around physics and a gun that lets you shoot portals you can pass through. The first game was released in 2007 in The Orange Box as an extra game and was only around three hours long if you didn’t know what to do. The first game was a critical hit because of the tight gameplay, great pacing and witty dialog. The sequel took it up a notch by being a fully featured eight hour long game. Though not as well received as the first one, Portal 2 still got enough acclaim to be counted as one of the best games of 2011.