Reviewed by Megan Parker
The first Pirates of the Caribbean is probably one of my favorite movies. It’s one of the few that I can watch several times and never get tired of. The biggest reason for that? Captain Jack Sparrow of course! It’s more than just that, but he does provide a significant amount of the entertainment value of the movies. He’s such an interesting character, played very well by Johnny Depp. Except in this game.
The game itself isn’t really based so much on either of the movies that have been released, but rather (as its title proclaims) the legend of Captain Jack Sparrow. It starts off with Will and Jack fighting their way through an area in the Caribbean, but they’re soon captured and set to be hanged. The scene is reminiscent of the one at the end of the first movie, with a guy reading off the charges and Jack making amusing comments about them. Except they aren’t quite as amusing. Before they are hanged, though, Jack starts to regale stories of his exploits, which is where most of the game takes place.
Some of the game somewhat overlaps with the movies, such as saving Elizabeth Swann from the cursed pirates of the Black Pearl. A lot of it takes place in places that are hinted at in the movies, spanning through out the known world at the time.
Jack is usually telling the story, and at least one person always accompanies him. Sometimes Elizabeth, sometimes Will, depends on the story. Jack, of course, twists the truth in his stories and Will and Elizabeth end up on adventures they never were on. It’s slightly amusing the first time when Will and Jack are in the story and will says “Jack, I wasn’t with you then.” Slightly amusing thefirst time they did the joke, anyway.
The gameplay is composed of very straightforward hack and slash. There are combinations you can learn, but they honestly aren’t needed or necessarily used. As the game progresses, new movies are unlocked, such as having bombs or axes to throw, then later being able to light your sword on fire for extra damage. Most of the mobs aren’t much and a quick hack and slash and they’re done for. The treasure that you get, from either the baddies or various brakable items, will power up certain moves, giving it a little RPG feel. Very little since you tend to even forget about doing that. Jack, Will and Elizabeth aren’t even smart enough to figure out how to finish baddies off when they’re on the ground, that’s something they learn later.
Speaking of smarts, the AI – especially friendly AI – is horrendous. You always have a second person with you, and often they will stand and not attack unless they are attacked, or they wait for you to start attacking. In cases like the clay soldiers where you have to move into water, they actually will be entirely unproductive, making it a huge pain to kill the soldiers. Even early in the game, your partners tend to run into walls and keep doing so if there’s a baddie above them. They are especially aggravating In boss fights, since they always seem to do the exact opposite of what you want them to do. It seems much better to get anyone to help you play (which is where the co-op multiplayer comes in) than let the AI “help” out.
In each area (split between load scenes) you get four lives to divide between two characters. There are power ups that you can occasionally get and use to fill up one life bar. The slight bonus is, when you’re not playing one character, they take little to no damage. This is something you can use to your advantage: if one character gets very low on health, you can switch to the other and hopefully save a life.
The gameplay gets repetitive fast, and most of the regular baddies aren’t that much of a problem to deal with. A lot of the bosses die quickly using Will’s throwing axes (assuming you have enough). As it goes on though, it becomes a lot more frustrating. When you get to a boss stage (such as the Spanish ship captain, or Madam Tang in China), they have somewhat specific ways to beat the boss. On the Spanish ship, you have to get him angry and then dodge his very powerful attack so he damages his own main mast. If he destroys the iron around it enough, you can light it on fire and escape. You can’t kill the boss himself, and there are tons of sailors who somehow flood from the lower decks of a relatively small ship. As before, your partner is little help, so it’s you running around trying to get the captain angry and dodge his attacks all while fighting off the sailors. A lot of times they will box you in and kill you very quickly. If you lose all four lives, that’s it, you’re done and are resigned to doing that stage all over again; making it very frustrating.
In the case of Madam Tang, she takes a huge amount of damage, often splitting herself into three or more to get rid of. All of her clones block frequently and do a lot of damage. Once you beat her, you have to escape from a large dragon. The frustrating part is if you die too much, you have to start all over again. The game itself is fairly short, but it seems there are no checkpoints specifically to make the game “last longer”.
However, the stories are barely there and they only partially fill in any gaps, especially considering Jack is clearly lying through them all. They aren’t even that entertaining, and most of the dialogue is poorly written and poorly voiced. Will sounds mostly like Orlando Bloom, but is kind of flat on delivery. Elizabeth just sounds whiny and not at all like Keira Knightly. The only person from the movies voicing his character is surprisingly Johnny Depp. He doesn’t seem all that enthused though, and a lot of his lines seem to be thrown away. Jack does have some funny lines here and there, but unfortunately not as many as you would expect.
The graphics themselves aren’t terribly good either. They were able to capture the likenesses of the actors, but everything else is pretty uninspired. Sound and music are pretty forgettable too.
Even if you really love the movies, you’ll have a very hard time liking the game. From very basic and repetitive gameplay, repeating stages over and over because of the absence of checkpoints, to a lackluster overall presentation, there is really very little to like about this game.