Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

"Portable Pirates"

What would a big budget, summer action movie be without video game tie ins? Non existent apparently, as Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is seeing release on every still relevant console on the market. The PSP version takes you through numerous levels based on the second and third films in Disney's behemoth of a franchise, but unfortunately suffers the curse of the movie based game.

At World's End is an action game at it's core, and while there are a few deviations (more on those later), most of the game sends you hacking and slashing your way throughout the Caribbean. The games first pitfall comes in it's painfully simplistic combat system. X and Square trigger quick and heavy attacks respectably, while the L trigger is used to block. Nearly every enemy in the game can be defeated by mashing the buttons in a variety of different ways to string together combos. This is entirely optional of course, as solely hitting the square button will get you through the game just nicely.

The game's simplistic combat is a problem, but the biggest downfall of the game is an apparent lack of any sort of ambition whatsoever. While there are dozens of playable characters (pretty much any character who had at least a minor role in the film), every single one of them plays exactly the same. Most of these characters are only playable on the second run through, so it's understandable that they're clones, but not even the games main characters (Jack, Will, Barbossa, and Elizabeth) are unique in any way other than cosmetic differences. On top of that, there is no sort of upgrades, power ups or levels found in movie based games with a little more depth such as EA's Lord of the Rings games. The game is about as shallow as they come.

It's not all bad though. The developers have at least done a fairly decent job at incorporating the Pirates of the Caribbean license into the game. Hans Zimmer's excellent score is implemented into the game rather nicely, and definitely adds a nice layer of polish to the game. While none of the actors lend their talents here, the voice actors do as good a job as can be expected trying to fill in the shoes of actors such as Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush.

Like all movie games, the story suffers considerably. The super condensed plot glosses over some of the main points of the films, but I can't imagine anybody who hasn't seen the films could follow the plot at all. To top it all off, the characters don't even move their mouths in dialog scenes. A rather big blunder in this day and age if you ask me.

Visually, the game is very much what one might expect out of a movie based PSP game. It doesn't in any way stretch the capabilities of the system, but the graphics are serviceable enough to not make your eyes bleed. The character models do a good job replicating the film, and the background environments are plenty colorful with some ok textures.

For the gamer looking for a little bit of depth, this probably isn't the game for you. However, the developers were nice enough to throw in some mini games and unlockables. The mini games (Pirates Dice, Hearts) are fun little diversions from the main game, but ultimately aren't enough to keep you going. It's the same story for the unlockables. It's nice that there are a few extra weapons and characters, but it's highly unlikely it will prod anybody into giving this one a second try.

All in all, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is your average movie based game. It's fun for a little while, but if you're not a PotC fan already then don't bother. If you're looking for a Pirate game, then go for Sid Meier's Pirates! instead. Trust me on this one.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/11/07