 Review By: Nick Arvites |
Developer: | Eurocom |
| Publisher: | Disney Interactive Studios | |
| Genre: | Action | |
| ESRB: | Everyone 10+ | |
| # Of Players: | 1-2 | |
| Online Play: | No | |
| Accessories: | Dolby 5.1 Surround, HDTV 1080i |
One of the benefits of Disney Interactive handling the tie-in games is that they have a little more access to the source material than your random developers. The characters in the game look like their onscreen counterparts. As far as voices, well, I’ve heard much worse. At least they appear to have raided the Disney voice acting ranks to get decent mimickers, although there are points in the game where they lose the sound of their characters. Yet, while the characters look and somewhat sound like the same ones in the movie, the game doesn’t have their special traits present. You don’t see Jack actually being Jack. His walk and mannerisms aren’t even right, and it really just seems like you’re controlling a generic pirate that happens to look like Jack. The only time you see Jack being Jack is at the end of the duel scenes.
One of the small things in the game that really bugged me was the music. The Pirates of the Caribbean series has amazing music, and this game doesn’t capture it at all. Instead of getting the actual themes and background score to the movies, the game uses music that was “inspired” by the real deal. Ok, imagine a Star Wars tie-in game that had a piece that sounded sort of like the theme, but it really wasn’t the theme because they changed a few notes here and there. That’s what this is. It may not even bug most people, because it still retains the same sound and overall feel of the original music. To me, however, this was a small thing that they could have and should have nailed down on day one.
Really, Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End isn’t a bad game, but it isn’t a good game either. It gives you an adventure that mirrors the second and third movies in the series, and gives you characters that look and sometimes sound like their cinematic counterparts. The biggest problem is that the game isn’t challenging at all. I died more times from random traps or falling off a cliff/into the water (yeah, pirates illogically can’t swim in this one) than I did against enemies. Every so often, the game does try to mix it up by making you control three characters at once. You have to keep them all alive, so that can be challenging. Yet, as long as you watch the health of the characters, it really isn’t that difficult. Each level also has a slew of collectibles, and one hidden piece of Calypso’s map. The hidden items aren’t that hard to find, though a few of them did elude me. Some levels have puzzles, though they aren’t so hard that you’ll spend more than 3 minutes on them. This game is straightforward, and you really don’t have to go off the beaten path that much to see most of it.
I can say this though: the game doesn’t have any major glitches or problems or signs of a half-hearted rush-job like many other movie games. They at least made the game solid. The problem is the game lacks the charm of the movies, and that kills it for me.
Bottom Line:
Maybe I’m jaded, and I know I’m probably at least 10 years older than the target audience, but Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End just felt too easy and monotonous for me. I literally was able to knock out half of the game in an evening, and the other half the next evening, and still have time to catch the 11pm news on both nights. It isn’t that the game is bad, but it just isn’t challenging enough to hold my attention. I would have no problems recommending it to someone whose children love the movies, or even to a huge older Pirates of the Caribbean fan. The game is solid, and it generally does more right than it does wrong. It’s one of those middle of the road titles, which at least puts it above many movie cash-in bottomscrapers.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
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| 5.8 |
Posted: 2007-07-10 08:56:24 PST