I don’t think I have ever met one person who does not enjoy the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Kids love them because of all the pirates and adults love them for the eye candy in the form of Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and, for the guys, Keira Knightley. As with any major Hollywood blockbuster film, you know there will be a flurry of merchandising around the film. In some cases the profit made from the merchandising overshadows that of the film itself. It is thus that the film tie in game came about. A genre of game that is made purely to get as many sales as possible and either replicate the story that was in the film, or create a new story that runs parallel with the film using the same characters. Most of these games are really, really bad… and I’m sorry to report that Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow cannot be exempt from that assumption. It really is just downright bad. There is no depth to the gameplay, there is nothing special about the game and it looks unfinished.

Disappointing gameplay

The first thing you notice about the game when you put it in is that it looks as though the screen is stretched and out of proportion. So thinking to myself “oh, I should change the settings to suit the TV I’m using,” I was surprised when I realized that no such option existed. Instead when you do go into the actual game the screen proportions become right and interestingly it changes throughout the game. I’m sure it wasn’t intended to be this way, because it looks like you are playing some sort of game development test. The characters and environment are really low quality, so much so that there are often clipping errors where you can just walk straight through objects. The movement of the characters is very rough and jerky too, and all these factors combined together make the overall gameplay just plain nasty.

Humour is redeeming

On the other hand, the story that gets played through in the game is actually quite good, and is riddled with the all the humour that is found in the films. Jack is as whimsical as always and with a sense of dry humour is able to make anyone smile. The beginning of the game finds Jack and Will Turner about to be hanged. Before you are hanged you have the chance to plead your innocence, of which Jack takes full advantage and begins an elaborate tale. It is thus up to you to play through all the scenarios that are being told in his story. This is very clever, and entertaining at the same time, as you have Will shouting to Jack the whole time “This isn’t how it went” or “I think you’re getting a bit carried away, Jack.”