Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

"Your average movie based game"

I thought the third Pirates film was so-so. A big long, a bit boring ECT. Picked up the game as a rental to try it out and I guess it could have been worse. Is it as bad as other movie cash ins? Is it actually a pretty decent game? Read on!

Just a heads up but this game follows a some what different plot than the movie. Actually, to compare them makes no sense. Jack and other pirate guy must escape from this island. Upon doing so jack finds out that Will is wanted and must find out more information on it all. Then the movie's plot kind of kicks in but for anyone who has seen the movie the first part of the game makes no sense. Actually, I think it would be rather hard to make an interesting game out of such a non-action packed movie.

The games graphics are kind of average. The locations feel small and a bit uninspired. The character models look good if not a little rough around the edges. The game doesn't look bad but it's far from interesting.

I'm not sure if the game uses the actors from the movie but it seemed like it did but I'm probably wrong. Music was not from the film (which was a high light of the movie) but the music wasn't bad in the game. Sound effects are a bit lacking. Some sounds just aren't there and the sounds during the duals really did nothing for me.

The game has a very simple control set up. Move with the analog stick, camera is the right stick. A interacts with stuff. You have an attack button and you just hit it three times and the enemy dies. Unless it's a sub boss type of enemy and you just kill normal guys over and over then you hit Y (I think) and it goes into the super kill mode. With the dulls the game uses just up, down and left/right. Very easy and actually rather boring.

Pirates consists of 9 or so levels. They are fairly large. Kind of linear in design but they have some off the beaten path areas and some larger open areas. Most of the game has you going from point A to point B. Along the way you fight guys and do little odd jobs like tear posters down or whatever. Once in a while you'll need to talk to someone.

The problem is that the game is kind of vague in what it wants you to do and when you need to talk to someone; there is no way to tell who it is you're supposed to talk to.

The games fighting engine seems to be the thing that the game is hailed for, or so says the box. It's pretty much hit attack twice and the enemy turns around and you hit attack again and he dies. The only change is when it's a sub boss like enemy and you just have to beat 20 or so normal guys to fill your super attack meter and then use your super attack on the sub boss like enemy and it dies.

The other type of sword fighting is one on one (although the other fighting only allows for one person to attack at a time as well...). These fights are all about blocking and then counterattacking. Nothing exciting and it was too easy as the moves are predictable and stale.

The game has some interesting achievements by placing hidden items to find in each of the worlds. So it does give you a reason for getting 100% but if you're not into gamer score of completing a game to perfection then it's kind of useless.

Fans of the film may be disappointed with this game. I didn't even care for the game much but because of the box I was expecting epic duals. It didn't deliver that and instead delivered a typical action setup with mediocre and watered down fighting.

Story - 5/10
Graphics - 8/10
Sound - 8/10
Control - 7/10
Game Play - 5/10
Replay value - 5/10

Final Score - 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/12/07