Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End Review for Wii @ VGGEN.com

Review By: Jared Black	Developer:	Eurocom
	Publisher:	Disney Interactive Studios
	Genre:	Action
	ESRB:	Everyone 10+
	# Of Players:	1-2
	Online Play:	No
	Accessories:	Nunchuk
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To be fair, the game’s not all bad control-wise. The C button can be used to trigger pre-set moves (in addition to flipping switches and the like) while interacting with the environment, such as Jack jumping up onto a rope and kicking an enemy while hanging. Some of these were pretty clever. Enemies can also be grabbed by shaking the Nunchuk, with a stylistic special move to follow should it be executed successfully. Both the environmental and grab moves take a little longer to execute however, leaving the player open to a brutal counterattack when multiple enemies are around.

I guess there’s a positive to those who haven’t seen the movie yet in the fact that AWE fails spectacularly to tell the narrative it’s based on. To start with, at least half of the game inexplicably covers the second movie. Perhaps Disney thought it wise given the second movie was so underrepresented in the video game world, or maybe it made sense to the developers since parts two and three of the movie trilogy were originally supposed to be one sequel (broken up when the first movie outperformed even the most optimistic expectations). Either way, the entire game fails to really explain why you’re doing the things you’re doing. Sure, a skeleton outline of the storyline found in the movies is there, but it would’ve been nice to have a bit more of the back-story to at least attempt to involve the player more in these characters’ adventures.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Then we move on to the graphics, which in all honesty are some of the worst I've seen on the system in a boxed retail release yet. At least games that keep it simple on purpose, like Kororinpa, still have a basic and appealing look to them. Instead, AWE sports mostly bland environments (with some sparse interactivity and the occasional scenic background keeping them from total mediocrity), and character models that look like they were beaten with an ugly stick before they were even ported over from the PS2. Some of the animation is admittedly pretty good, but it merely serves to remind one of how good this could’ve looked if it were more than a direct port from a last-gen console.

The sound is OK and nothing more. The music is exactly what you’d expect from Pirates of the Caribbean, with lots of usage of the main theme song and various sea-going fare. While the voice actors do a decent job of standing in for the actual stars of the movie franchise, there are times when they noticeably sound like anything but Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, etc.

Bottom Line:

Not only is this one of the worst games on Wii, but it’s also one of the very worst licensed titles of all time. The Wii version in particular is a disaster, with even its DS cousin outperforming it by a wide margin. When developers look to port future titles to the Wii, they should first play Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End for a good example of how not to do it.

Pros:	Cons:	Final Score:
Rousing soundtrack based primarily on the movie’s theme song. Some interaction with the environment is interesting at times.	Tacked-on Wii Remote controls that do little to make the player feel like an actual pirate, unless pirating in the Caribbean involved a lot of wrist pain. Weak retelling of the movie's storyline gave me little reason to care. Ugly graphics, particularly with the character models, saved only by some decent backgrounds.	3.0

Posted: 2007-07-07 16:32:25 PST