Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
I've been knee-deep in Pirates of the Caribbean for over a week now. Between going to a Disney sponsored Blu-ray event, getting screeners of the first two films on that format, and buying my tickets for At World's End, I'm pretty steeped in the world of Captain Jack Sparrow at the moment. So I couldn't wait to give Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End a spin on my Xbox 360. Now I wish I had spent my time doing something more constructive, like sleeping.
The game follows witty Jack through the events of Dead Man's Chest and At World's End, now truncated and intertwined for the developer's convenience. You begin the game in the Turkish prison from which Jack escaped at the beginning of Dead Man's Chest. The moment you start moving through the level, you immediately notice the glaring problems. For one thing, even though Jack exists in a 3D space, the camera does not change its angle relative to him unless you manually move it. This leads to a lot of untimely deaths and a difficulty in traversing a level.
The combat is also a problem. You use swords to fight, but no decent mechanics were conceived for the game. You use the A button to swing your sword, and the X button to punch. Three taps of the A button will kill all but the strongest enemy. The game attempts to broaden the combat capacity by including things such as explosive barrels, limited use of guns, and so on, but they don't work because none of them are as effective as just mashing the A button as often as possible. It's repetitive and boring.
The game's attempt at "boss fights" occur in the form of duels. Here, Jack squares off directly with a single opponent, and has to defend against attacks for a certain time before he can go on the offensive. Each successful block increases a meter. Once the meter is half full, Jack can attack back. The problem is, the game is not nearly sensitive enough to the button presses you need to make in order to defend, making the blocking an absolute chore. Furthermore, the moment you take a single hit, it eradicates your meter completely, meaning you get beaten up often before you are even allowed to land a single hit.
The rhythm of the game works as such: Find an object/person, take it to another person, and fight anyone you find in the way. Also, collect hidden items. Rinse and repeat. The game has little to no variety, and it does a poor job of integrating the story from the films. In all, there's not much worthwhile on display here.
The Visuals:
At World's End has some of the least impressive visuals I've seen on the Xbox 360. The textures in the environments are flat and dull. The colors are drab and detail is low. The characters look sufficiently like their cinematic counterparts, and they do a good job of animating Jack to retain his mannerisms, but on the whole, the imagery looks uninspired and uninteresting.
The Audio:
Unlike in The Legend of Jack Sparrow, Disney made no effort to retain any of the voice talent for At World's End. It's clear that every voice is done by an imitator, and not even good ones. And this might seem like a strange complaint having just lamented the voice acting, but Jack says nothing during the levels. It's actually fairly jarring to have your main character be 100% silent during gameplay, especially when that character is someone as hilarious as Jack Sparrow. A missed opportunity on Disney's part.
The Conclusion:
There are worse ways to spend a few hours than playing At World's End, but most of them involve prison. This is a completely banal and uninteresting outing for Jack Sparrow, and should be given as wide a berth as possible. Skip It.