"Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game" Review

9/10
"Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game"
Review

2011
Developer(s): Traveller's Tales
Publisher(s): Disney Interactive Studios
Genre(s): Action-Adventure
Mode(s): Single-player, Multiplayer

This gathering of four games, one per film in the series, follows the films' story-line fairly closely, but without spoken words outside a few grunts and sighs not unlike most of the dialogue in the Mr Bean series. That is to say that the game is more focused on the visual comedy of Mr Bean, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Jaques Tati, replacing the dialogue with miming and the occasional images. It is amusing to those of us who have reached a certain age, trying to spot some hidden message somewhere in the background or foreground which might elude the younger players, but which have a more direct translation or play-on-words from the films.

Those parents who may read this can rest assured that no one dies in this game; they just go to pieces.

While the game follows the film plots, there has been a need for padding on a few things and tasks to make things more challenging. Setting fire to an island to act as a signal has never been more complicated or amusing.

It is possible to finish the story of the game within the same span of time as the films, but there are so many small challenges and mini-missions that doing so would be robbing yourself of much of the fun. That being said, it is also impossible to complete every single side-mission without finishing the story in its entirety as there are key characters needed to open or access certain areas that are not available until after the story has been completed. Gaining access to these characters is not enough, however, as you need to save up the currency of the Lego world (which is called Pegs) to buy them in the Hub of the game where you can move between films.

Put short and simple; This is a game which entertains the entire family, and should be part of every gamer's collection.