Even though games based on movies generally suck I decided to give the Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End Demo a try last night. To start off with the level is longer than I expected in a demo. It was a pretty respectable length. I think I played it somewhere around 15 or 20 minutes. The graphics are better than what I expected for a movie based game. The characters actually look like the actors from the game for the most part. Captain Jack actually looks like Johnny Depp.

Beyond those two points everything else was pretty lousy. I’m not sure if they got the actual actors to play their voices , but I’m guessing not because the voice acting was terrible. At points the voices sound great, but at others it sounds really bad. The controls for the game were pretty lame. Basically the A button is your sword attack, the X button punches, and the Y button grapples. Beyond these attacking controls you can pickup and throw items with the RB. However, everything seems a little flaky. The Y button also doubles as the dodge button when you are being attacked, but if you are not facing the person who is about to take a swing at you then you grapple the closes person instead and get hit in the back. They make is easy to see when someone is about to attack by putting a ring under their feet that glows, but I found it easier to just run away than to try and actually dodge their attacks. The other control thing I found annoying is that when someone gets close enough to attack you move slower because it goes to “melee mode”, but other than moving slower nothing else changes in melee mode. I don’t see the need to move slower when you’re trying to fight.

Since they can’t just have you run through the level and kill everything they also add some “puzzle” elements. These come off really lame. In one spot you have to shoot three shields off the wall to expose a switch to open a door. In another spot you have to move an exploding barrel to the front of the door and then blow it up. All of these little “puzzles” seem like they were added on just to make the game take longer to play. After getting through most of the demo you come to the final boss which puts you in duel mode. I found dual mode to be even easier than the rest of the fighting. Basically, you have to watch your opponent and do what they do until you fill a power meter and then you can attack. After about two attacks they are dead. I was surprised how fast and easy the boss battle was. The final complaint that I have is that even for a tutorial level they still interrupt the game way to much for my tastes. Ever time they want you to do something specific they pause the game and tell you how to do it even if you just did the same thing in the previous room. Overall the game is what I expected, a crappy game that was throw together to make money off of the Pirates of the Caribbean title.