Final Verdict

For all its faults, Pirates of the Caribbean remains merely a mediocre game thanks to a strong core of gameplay mechanics that manage to shine through the horrible ‘updates’ forced upon the game since Sea Dogs. The beautiful graphics no doubt help, and the campaign is quite interesting.

Manual aim

Teh rock!

Sharks

On the down side, there’s everything else. It’s the rare game that manages to disappoint as decisively as Pirates of the Caribbean. The real potential of this title is so readily apparent beneath the surface, it’s easy to forgive anyone who overlooks the flaws and argues that PotC is a good game. In the end, however, the pirate-game-turned-micro-economic-sim Port Royale makes a convincing argument to relegate Pirates of the Caribbean to a bargain bin.

It’s funny, I expected Pirates of the Caribbean movie to suck extraordinarily – like a league of gentlemen of some sort or other, but was pleasantly surprised to get whack of entertainment value for my dollar. On the other hand, the lofty expectations placed upon Pirates of the Caribbean: the game simply highlight the incredible deficiencies it brought to the market. In the gaming industry, it’s truly rare for a sequel to be orders of magnitude worse than its predecessor, but Akella managed to pull Battlezone 2: Redux out of their collective asses. More’s the pity, aye mate?