Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End came close to being a great movie-based video games because it plays well, something that cannot be said of Activision’s abysmal Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third.

Disney apparently couldn’t help its subsidiary, Disney Interactive create an authentic video game based on an upcoming film destined to break box office records. No one signed Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom or Keira Knightley to provide voiceovers. No one shelled out the dough to capture actual tracks from films, instead settling for music “inspired by the movies” and no one stopped developer Eurocom from altering key scenes from Dead Man’s Chest, one of the two films the game chronicles (At World’s End being the other). As a result, gamers must put up with (Jack Sparrow excluded) lackluster acting, passionless music and events that don’t coincide with the source material. Not that people should even watch the cut scenes, which not only look worse than the rest of the game, but also feel disjointed and unfinished, thanks to awkward pauses and a lack of dialogue. Apparently, not even second rate actors come cheap.

Despite all this, there lies an entertaining video game, not an amazingly polished or even well designed one, but fun nonetheless. Players experience key battles from both films, wandering around Tortuga, scaling pirate ships, battling the Kraken, exploring a dangerous tropical island and hunting for buried treasure, all the while hacking their way to victory. Eurocom does a good job delivering swashbuckling to the masses at the expense of a block button. An innovative dodge mechanic takes its place, where gamers look for a red circle underneath and opponent’s feet and then tilt the left analog stick, side stepping their adversary and executing a trip, slash or back body drop. All one must do to defeat the ugly pirates and Davy Jones’ henchman is button mash, which causes their selected pirate, whether it be Sparrow, Will Turner, Elizabeth Swann or one of the game’s numerous characters to slice and dice their foes. At the same time, they can also execute special moves, twirling around and sticking bad guys or even working as a team to unleash two-character attacks. Gamers can even switch between pirates on the fly by pressing left or right on the d-pad, allowing them to explore new combos.

This works well, even in the face of linear missions that force gamers to hit switches, explore one area before proceeding or kill a certain number of enemies to move on, all thanks to a point system that rises the more secret items/coin bags people collect and special moves they perform. The more loot they snag, the more points they earn a better chance at overtaking fellow pirates on the Xbox Live leader boards. This alone drives the game, carrying players to its conclusion. It masks its warts, even the boring and oftentimes unfair dueling segments where players, moving at a much slower pace, swordfight an artificially controlled opponent (or another person in the limited multiplayer mode). Similar to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 video game, Crackdown, the concept of collecting outweighs most of the negatives. Forget about the lack of an Xbox Live multiplayer mode and that most of the secret “extras” amount to unimpressive storyboards and character models.

At least the game looks good. Sunlight bursts through green foliage, water flows realistically, the Kraken’s tentacles tear apart the Black Pearl and Jack Sparrow has his bizarre mannerisms. Not all of the faces look good, odd considering Eurocom scored digital scans of the actors, but for the most part, At World’s End is one fine looking video game, so good that it makes the fuzzy, low resolution cut scenes look awful.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is one of the best and worst movie-based games. On one hand, it features a simple play style that almost anyone can learn, and collecting stuff to beat people online never gets old. On the other, Disney deserves an empty rum bottle to its collective head for not having the foresight and/or putting forth the effort to do one of its greatest franchises justice. Clearly, the bottom line was more important than creating something special.

Final Score: 7 (out of 10)

Originally from GameDaily