Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

June 15,2007 - When Pirates of the Caribbean came out in 2003 it was set as a film to mostly market and promote the Disney ride. It quickly surpassed just that and became a cultural phenomenon that, between the three installments, has made more money than almost any film franchise in the business’ history. Naturally with such success, Disney wanted to capitalize on every front that they could, and fortunately enough, us gamers get a piece of it. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End released for just about every platform under the sun that is still supported in some way. It’s not a bad game, but it surely could have been better. As far as licensed games are concerned, this is one of the better ones to come out in a while, and for fans of the Pirates trilogy, you really can’t go wrong giving this one a look.

At World’s End doesn’t really have a lot of lasting value as it’s just a campaign mode that spans across the three main characters: Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth Swan, and Will Turner. The story takes place in various parts throughout Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End, and overall it doesn’t really matter all that much to the actual game. At World’s End mostly gives you pleasure based on the fact you get to play as these Pirates characters and slash up a lot of guys with some pretty monotonous, repetitive action combat.

The gameplay in At World’s End is pretty standard fare. You’ll spend most of your time cutting up bad guys, using the same attacks over and over again with a special move or two every so often. Other times you’ll have to do various running and jumping platforming puzzles throughout the good-looking and well designed locales. The only time the actual gameplay varies is during boss battles. There are a little more interesting considering you’re dueling with people rather than slash and attack.

At World’s End’s story generally follows the movie’s, which is to retrieve Davy Jones’ heart from Lord Becket, but it’s really hard to get everything since it’s all sort of just thrown together. It’s more or less just assumed you know the story of all three movies going in to the game, because really, why would you play such an average game if you weren’t previously exposed to the subject matter. From the plot’s standpoint it’s just really bland, even when you consider the grand scope both of the sequels had. Fighting from Tortuga to Singapore is only interesting because of the actual level design, not the combat, characters, or dialog that weave it all together.

Combat in the game is pretty straight forward. You have a strong attack, a standard attack, and special attacks. You’ll find yourself using the standard attack almost the entire way through the game as the other two are rather slow and don’t really make that big of a difference when you’re fighting against generic enemies that literally come out of nowhere. There is also the ability to fight with knives and guns, which are both equally ineffective. It’s almost like they’re just there so they can advertise the fact that it actually has that in the game rather than it actually needing to be there really at any time throughout the campaign.

You mostly get to play as Jack Sparrow, which is to be expected, but you’ll also get to take control of Will or Elizabeth. They really aren’t too different from each other, or from Jack for that matter, so it really won’t be anything special or invigorating when you finally make the switch over to a different character. Sometimes you even get to play as all three characters, or at least have the other two on your team as they fight along side of you. Unsurprisingly enough, the artificial intelligence controlling the two is pretty average and really won’t keep up with you. You’re urged to use combo moves to raise your notoriety points, but really that’s just a way to keep the game relative to the subject matter and not really a way to add anything to the actual gameplay whatsoever. The boss battles in At World’s End are usually pretty cool. They have some nice duel options, sort of like the timed events in God of War or Resident Evil 4. You’ll have to press a designated button to make an attack or block an attack, and while that sounds pretty generic, it’s about the only cool thing the combat has going for it.

Graphically speaking, At World’s End isn’t on par with the likes of Gears of War or something like that, but it’s pretty darn good looking. The locales are all varied and interesting, not to mention the lush tropical look of some of the places. Character models and animations could use a little work, on the other hand. Often times both in-game and in the cutscenes the characters look a little on the robotic side, even to the point of being comical. It’s funny seeing Jack Sparrow walk like a drunken sailor only to be choppy and look almost completely the opposite of what he’s supposed to. Also, the audio isn’t too bad either. The voice work is suitable and the soundtrack is the same you’ll hear in the movie with the great thematic score that really hits the right spot with the whole Pirates franchise. The only down side are the actual sound effects. Most of the sound effects sound like they’re from a cheap licensed video game for the PS2. Oh wait, we suppose you could almost say that they are.

Ultimately, between the short campaign and the rather bland combat, Pirates doesn’t do a lot to separate itself from the heap of other action games just like it. But for some reason, maybe the score, the graphics, and the subject matter pull it together for a rather entertaining rental-like play through. It’s a recommendable game to fans of the movies, but beyond that its reach really won’t extend any further. Don’t be afraid to check it out, but really, unless you’re a die-hard fan, don’t buy it.

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