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It’s heartening to see Disney Interactive attempting to put a lot more effort into a movie-based next gen title. Long known for decent platformers during the 16-bit era, they haven’t had much to crow about lately, and had high hopes for the latest Pirates of the Caribbean game. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is releasing to coincide with the finale of the cinematic trilogy, and while not ground-breaking, the game is not bad.

He’s a Pirate! Arrr!

Mixing up plot points from the second and third movies, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End isn’t especially adept at storytelling. If you’ve seen the movies, you’ll know all you need to know. The game starts off recapping the end of the second flick, but gets into the content of the latest movie pretty fast. Still, the new mission cinematic sequences don’t flow well. Even for fans of the movie, keeping track of the storyline is difficult.

All your favorite characters are here and most are playable (or fightable). You’ll spend plenty of time in the boots of Jack Sparrow and Will Turner in particular—often at the same time. The game fits comfortably in the action/adventure genre, but definitely focuses on the action side of things. Swashbuckling is the main gameplay element here, but thankfully, the exploration portions aren’t bad either.

Granted, nothing in the game is particularly complex. You’ll guide your pirate (or pirates) around through a variety of familiar environments—from stock seaport towns to pirate ships, rocky coves, and more—searching for booty, characters, treasure, and things to kill. There are slight overtones of Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia here. Jack and company can climb up and hang from ledges, shimmy across them, carefully walk balance beams, and do a few other feats of athletics, but generally, such activities aren’t the focus of the missions. It’s actually a shame that the design doesn’t go further into the realm of true adventure and acrobatics. The focus is squarely on combat—at times to the detriment of the rest of the design. You’ll be fighting nearly overwhelming odds frequently, making the rest of the level mere filler between combat segments.

Rated T for Your Protection

Given that this is a Disney title, and even despite the Teen rating, it’s not surprising that the game is pretty much bloodless. The lack of gore and mayhem leads to some odd game play. Opponents turn their backs to you, stunned, after just a couple of hits, so you can deliver a remarkably innocuous final blow to them. You can also use a pistol or throwing dagger, but the violence is definitely toned down.

That said, there are some excellent combat elements. Although kept simple, with just two strike buttons, the fighting has a nicely fluid, cinematic feel to it. When a red circle appears below enemies, for instance, pressing an attack button will make your character automatically perform a variety of evasive moves. Since you are usually battling multiple opponents, it’s also easy to move attacks between enemies. Still, despite the initially interesting gameplay, the constant swordplay gets boring after a while.

Dueling in High Def-style… with Friends

Another interesting, if flawed, combat aspect is the ability to switch between characters during a battle in real-time. With this ability, you will often have to oversee several characters at once, with the AI controlling the non-active pirates. The problem with this is that the AI loses fights constantly, so you have to babysit multiple characters simultaneously. Duels are another interestingly flawed bit. During these one-on-ones, you have to watch indicator circles to block and counter-attack. The indicator circles are an effort to blend a cinematic feel with the action, but the blocking feels incredibly unresponsive, and attacking often feels random and clumsy.

While the gameplay might be hit or miss, the presentation is outstanding. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End looks amazing. Although there are occasional flaws in the character close-ups, the textures, characters, and levels are stunningly true-to-life. To call it one of the best-looking next-gen titles is not a complete stretch. The audio is excellent, too. Oddly enough, the game doesn’t use the actual actors for the voices, but the stand-ins are eerily close. The music is topnotch, and the surround sound mix is powerful with excellent rear channel effects.

A Pirate’s Life for Me!

Although not a great game, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is a major step in the right direction for movie-based games. The presentation is gorgeous and the gameplay has enough fun elements to make it worthwhile. Though not as deep or complex as it could have been, this is certainly one of the best movies-turned-games we’ve seen lately.

Article by: Jason D'Aprile