Pirates Of The Caribbean: At Worlds End

You remember that brilliant scene in Pirates Of The Caribbean where Johnny Depp fights Maccus using a three-hit slash, slash, slash combo over and over again, so he can get the first bit of sheet music to complete the organ puzzle? Or when Orlando Bloom runs around for a good quarter of an hour trying to find the bucket of pitch so he can set fire to his sword, then fire a cannon so he can jump over a cliff? Perhaps your favourite bit was when the duo teamed up to find all of the Nautilus shells on the Flying Dutchman but could only find four out of seven? Or maybe, just maybe, you don’t recall any of these bits because they weren’t actually in the film and were added to the game for reasons beyond any sane, logical human being.
That makes us sound like we hate Pirates Of The Caribbean. We don’t. Pirates walks that fine line between triumph and tragedy without ever looking like it’s going to fall on either side of the divide; the sign of a game that’s been made with care but without ambition. The graphics, for example. Orlando Bloom and co. look highly detailed but they also look like strungout zombies. The voice acting. You can tell it’s more Donny Jepp than Johnny Depp, but the voice acting isn’t bad, it’s just an out-of-work cockney giving it his best shot. The gameplay sees you duelling and taking part in intricate sword fights with counter-attacks and special moves, but you can use the same combo throughout the whole game and use the compass point to find your way to the end credits without any hassle. It’s the same game in the last level as it is in the first, just with different settings. In the entire history of videogames, there has never been a game as average as At World’s End. Ever.

It’s good. It’s bad. It’s passable. It’s intolerable. It’s fun. It’s frustrating. It’s all of those things and more. It’s a completely confusing mess of a game that bounces around from joyful to joyless with no in-between whatsoever. What more can be said? You know what to expect. It’s Pirates Of The Caribbean and it’s average. That’s all you need to know.