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With the compulsory pirate-speak out of the way, I can now tell you whether LEGO Pirates is worth spending those pieces of gold on or whether it should walk the plank.
As you’ll probably have gathered from the title, LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean is a LEGO game in the same vein as LEGO Star Wars, Indy and all the other games in the series. In fact, Pirates doesn’t really do anything more than any of these others. In theory, it’s pretty much the same game wrapped in a different skin.
But then it’s pretty much the same for all the LEGO games, what keeps them fresh isn’t the gameplay so much as the story and fan service they bring to the table. In this instance, fans of Captain Jack Sparrow and co will love this game, especially since it also contains gameplay based on the fourth film, which hasn’t even reached DVD yet.
Although the game offers plenty of other characters to play as, it still feels as if the cast list is smaller than previous franchises. There are less characters that you’ll want to unlock and even when you do, Jack Sparrow remains far and away the best realised character, probably the most entertaining in any of the LEGO games, in fact.
Puzzles, brick bashing and stud gathering are still the order of the day here. Fans of previous games will have seen it and played it all before. But there are some standout moments here too. Taken from the more action-orientated moments of the film series, certain levels change tack and let you do something different for a change. The best of these has to be rolling around in cages in Pelegosto, which was great fun and, more importantly, offered a complete change in pace.
That’s not to say the puzzle levels don’t have their moments. Some of the on-ship scenes where the storm rises and the boat rocks around are brilliant, those of you who feel sea-sick might start going green by the end of the level.
Free Play gives you the chance to replay the levels in any order with different characters, finding all the hidden studs that you might have missed the first time around. The value of the game increases substantially if you’re willing to give it time to play though this mode and find the secrets, but then this is the same for pretty much all the LEGO titles.
Graphically, Pirates is a slight step up again from Star Wars and Harry Potter, though perhaps less noticeable this time around. It’s pretty amazing the level of detail they managed to get out of the Wii and still make the game run fairly smoothly. Some of the set-pieces make it well worth slogging through slower parts of the game, though I found myself on decks of ships too many times for my liking.
LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean doesn’t really innovate in the gameplay department, but fans of Jack Sparrow will love it for what it is; a LEGO based homage to the series and another solid LEGO game in its own right.
7/10
With the compulsory pirate-speak out of the way, I can now tell you whether LEGO Pirates is worth spending those pieces of gold on or whether it should walk the plank.
As you’ll probably have gathered from the title, LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean is a LEGO game in the same vein as LEGO Star Wars, Indy and all the other games in the series. In fact, Pirates doesn’t really do anything more than any of these others. In theory, it’s pretty much the same game wrapped in a different skin.
But then it’s pretty much the same for all the LEGO games, what keeps them fresh isn’t the gameplay so much as the story and fan service they bring to the table. In this instance, fans of Captain Jack Sparrow and co will love this game, especially since it also contains gameplay based on the fourth film, which hasn’t even reached DVD yet.
Although the game offers plenty of other characters to play as, it still feels as if the cast list is smaller than previous franchises. There are less characters that you’ll want to unlock and even when you do, Jack Sparrow remains far and away the best realised character, probably the most entertaining in any of the LEGO games, in fact.
Puzzles, brick bashing and stud gathering are still the order of the day here. Fans of previous games will have seen it and played it all before. But there are some standout moments here too. Taken from the more action-orientated moments of the film series, certain levels change tack and let you do something different for a change. The best of these has to be rolling around in cages in Pelegosto, which was great fun and, more importantly, offered a complete change in pace.
That’s not to say the puzzle levels don’t have their moments. Some of the on-ship scenes where the storm rises and the boat rocks around are brilliant, those of you who feel sea-sick might start going green by the end of the level.
Free Play gives you the chance to replay the levels in any order with different characters, finding all the hidden studs that you might have missed the first time around. The value of the game increases substantially if you’re willing to give it time to play though this mode and find the secrets, but then this is the same for pretty much all the LEGO titles.
Graphically, Pirates is a slight step up again from Star Wars and Harry Potter, though perhaps less noticeable this time around. It’s pretty amazing the level of detail they managed to get out of the Wii and still make the game run fairly smoothly. Some of the set-pieces make it well worth slogging through slower parts of the game, though I found myself on decks of ships too many times for my liking.
LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean doesn’t really innovate in the gameplay department, but fans of Jack Sparrow will love it for what it is; a LEGO based homage to the series and another solid LEGO game in its own right.
7/10