Pirates of the Caribbean

"A battered gem off the port side"

Intro:

Pirates of the Caribbean may share the same name as Disney's film, but the only connection between the two is that there are pirates and they appear to be in the Caribbean. POTC first began as a sequel to the popular PC Game, Sea Dogs. Sea Dogs 2 became scrapped just as POTC was announced. Hardly a coincidence. In POTC the gamer takes on the role of Nathaniel Hawk in a classic western RPG experience of waking up and discovering who you are.

Gameplay:

Unlike Morrowind, POTC was only published by Bethseda, whereas the former was developed. Regardless of this fact, POTC shares a lot in common with Morrowind, both the good and the bad. POTC is definitely an open-ended game, you can sail wherever you want and kill whoever you want but there definitely feels like it is a straightforward game. Part of this is the fact that POTC, while different, ends up being a much simpler experience than the mammoth game Morrowind. Another part of this feeling of linear form is that there is hardly a myriad of sidequests, if you want to have some fun you'll have to be a lot more innovative. Unfortunately, the simplicity makes creating quests for yourself rather silly, one example of this is that you cannot be arrested. Throughout the game you have many extremely long quests which involve 2 basic types of gameplay, 3rd person fighting and ship combat. I will break gameplay up into these 2 categories:

3rd person Adventure/Fighting:

Exploring the islands of POTC, it is necessary for you to visit everything from shipyards to buy ammunition for your ship to hiring captains and crew for your vessel. The islands are large, but the towns are pretty small, and if you don't feel like walking, pressing why gives you a list of key places that you can teleport to instead of walking. Every town feels pretty much the same, and every tavern will serve the same purpose. Another big part of the trading is in goods such as silk, ivory and the like. Certain islands have such items as imports, exports or contraband. It is important that if you want to make money, you can buy it from a town that exports, and either try and sell it for more as contraband elsewhere (which can get you into a scurry) or to an importing town who desires such goods. Now, as far as combat is concerned, Hawke is equipped with a sword (which you can of course purchase better than the default) as well as a pistol. The fighting is very clunky like Morrowind, and since this is an RPG, it takes into consideration your skills and attributes (by leveling up you gain skill points which can improve things from leadership to melee combat and attribute points give you certain advantages such as increased defense, faster reload etc). In addition to a slash and block button, there is also a dodge button, which slides Hawke back 5 or so feet.
Rating: 7/10

Ship travel and combat:
While POTC isn't as large as Morrowind, it's seas are beyond massive and could take hours to traverse while in standard 3rd person ship mode. Luckily, when you just want to travel, there is a handy overworld map that shows you your ship as an icon. You can move across the map very quickly, and you can also see friendly and enemy ships that you can engage and return to the regular ship mode. You can also see storms coming, and depending on your skills, you may be able to avoid it. If you don't you are put right back in there with the rain and lighting in the fierce stormy waters. It's almost impossible to stay alive at low levels. As far as combat is concerned, POTC becomes extremely strategic. Using the wind to guide you, you need to try and get parallel to your enemy and after your crew has reloaded which ever weapon you tell them to, the A button is an automatic fire button. If you want to be more strategic, by pressing the stick you become Hawke on the boat and by looking through his spyglass can aim at the hull or the mast and order a fire. In addition to firing, but getting close to the enemy you can board the ship and you and your men will be involved in some large-scale fights in 3rd person (though even with a hundred crew members you won't see nearly that many during boarding.
Ship score: 8/10

Overall Gameplay score: 8/10

Graphics:
POTC should be in the dictionary next to ''mixed bag.'' Some of the jungle and foliage on the islands look incredible, some of the models are great while others are sub-par. The architecture in the buildings is fair. All in all, the land sequences look very nice, but suffer from a poor camera and some jumpy frame rates (think KOTOR or Morrowind).
While at sea, it's absolutely unbelievable. The water, ship and sun effects are absolutely the best graphics on XBOX. While Wind Waker may have implored an unrealistic style, sailing in POTC reminds me of WW because in both games I'm awed by their beauty.
It doesn't end here, because if it did, I would give POTC somewhere in the 8 range. While I have experienced very few bugs and freezes, they are there. Some said the game gets worse as you get along, and many claim their save file was corrupted. In addition to the framerate and camera problems, the graphics get really bogged down.

Technical/Graphics Score: 6.5

Sound:
Like you really care about sound? I've said yarrr more times in this topic than they do in the game. The sound effects are very generic, there is hardly any voice acting, and like Morrowind, it feels like there's a 10 second track repeated over and over again.

Overall Sound Score: 6/10

Conclusion:
POTC succeeds not because of it's sword fighting nor for it's ship combat. It succeeds because of how all of these different elements are tied together to create the only true experience of its kind on a console. And not to mention that it'll take a while to beat, and once you get good, random attacks against fleet and even defended forts can become quite fun.

Overall score: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/12/04, Updated 11/16/05