Pieces of eight and a case of scurvy...
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest is played in a third person view with you taking on the role of Captain Jack Sparrow as he works his way through a rough approximation of the film’s storyline. You cast off the game with Jack in prison and from then on you’re off on a fast paced run through a variety of levels as you first escape your prison and then find that Davey Jones is after you for your soul.
Movement in the third person view is accomplished by using the analogue stick and surprisingly, the camera view isn’t too bad for the most part. It zooms and pans around and for most of the game you can take control to get a better view, panning the camera left and right. If you back Jack into a corner the camera will give you a view through Jack’s now transparent head, which makes things nice and easy. Sadly, this is let down by the camera leaving control up to you too much, so you can find yourself being attacked by an off-screen enemy who you can’t fight until you’ve panned the camera around… Annoying and a waste of time in the middle of what’s supposed to be a fast paced clash of swords.
Most of the action centres around Jack fighting various bad guys as he tries to get from one end of the level to another. As he progresses through the game Jack can acquire special moves to defeat multiple baddies at once and he has the option of using any secondary weapons he picks up, but in the main you’ll be sticking to duelling with your sword. Now this is where the game starts of great and then eventually turns into tedious as the fighting mechanic of the game could have been so much better.
To start off a fight you need to get close to an enemy and hit the x button. You hit the x button a few more times to break down his guard and then use the square button to move in for the kill. Simple, eh? If you have trouble remembering that, icons appear over the baddies heads to tell you which button to press and when. Hit the square button too soon or hit x too many times and your foe will have a chance to counter-attack, causing you damage and then you start all over again. Hit x, x, x, square, square job done, one baddie kebab.
Now this is fine for the first level or two but when it runs on through the entire game, it gets more than a little tedious. There is some variation in that other baddies need to be attacked with the square button a few time and then x, or the few really bad guys that need a quick circle button to stun them first then go for the old x, x,x, square. What would have been so much better is to have different attacks on the different buttons and leave it open ended as to how you attack. Perhaps a leaping swing to kick off and then loads of thrusts followed by a head-height roundhouse sweep… anything for a bit of bloody variety, please!
