Name: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Genre: Adventure
System: Xbox 360, PS3, PSP, DS, Wii, PS2, PC (Reviewed on 360)

The original Pirates of the Caribbean is one of my favorite movies of all time. When the sequel came out last year I was not disappointed, and after seeing the finale of the trilogy I am happy to say that I was impressed.

That said, games based off of movies do have a reputation of being abysmal. There is a typical line of faults they follow that include:

1. A crappy plot that tries, but fails, to mirror the movie (without giving TOO much away.)
2. Buggy gameplay because of trying to force the developers to meet or beat the release of the movie.
3. Short single player mode for both reasons above.

There are more problems but those are just a few. The game version of At World’s End has all of those problems and more.

Firstly the plot is abysmal. The game begins where the second movie does and tries to do a quick run through to highlight the important events that might be important for the third movies plot. What you get is the following:

For anyone who didn’t see the second movie, don’t even bother. There it is for you in 40 seconds. Saved some time, eh?

The game also tries to capture some of the charm that the movie has by adding something called “Jackanisms.” The description the guide for the game has is “Jack has his own approach to problems!” When I read this I became excited as any fan of the movie would. I thought of extremely complicated movies that are as much luck as skill. I thought of shooting a rope and dropping a box on someone or at least using some distraction technique to fool an enemy.

So I collected a few shrunken heads (yeah, that’s how you do a Jackanism) and held down L, R, and A. Jack proceeded to shove his sword into the ground and shoot green light at his opponents.

I’m sorry; I must have missed that part.

The game is riddled with these moments. Times when it could have shined but instead fell flat. Most boss fights take place in “duel mode” which feels more like an elaborate game or rock-paper-scissors than any swordsmanship.

One good thing I will say about the game is that it does have good graphics. This is not enough to change my mind on the overall quality of the game, but the character models are solid and the rain effects, especially on wet bricks and walls, rival that of Gears of War. However, you can paint an old, broken car with as many shiny coats as you want but it will still not get you anywhere. That said my best advice would be to: