Xbox 360 Preview: Lego Pirates of the Caribbean

The Lego franchise hits Pirates of the Caribbean, but how is it shaping up?

When I heard that the next Lego game would be taking on the POTC license, I was sceptical to say the least…but last week I finally got the chance to take Captain Jack and friends for a spin and was surprised with the results.

The standard formula of the Lego games remain, except that POTC has some differences such as a compass that will point you in the direction of objects that you will need to clear puzzles and move onto the next area, it’s perhaps a little confusing and there were times where a few of us were scratching our heads wondering what to do. But the good news is that when you pick up an item, you’ll be pointed in the direction for where to place it.

I did play a few levels co-operatively and it was much easier and more enjoyable than playing solo. We were doing quite well, but got stuck half way through a boss fight that got pretty damn annoying as we couldn’t think of anything else to do, but keep in mind we had a few drinks by then and our minds weren’t entirely focused as they should be.

The game covers all 4 POTC films and it has the traditional Lego humour of telling the stories. As usual, there are tons of collectables to find and areas that you can’t reach in story mode, but in Super Free Play by using certain characters. You can now also pick any character you want in Super Free Play as opposed to being given just a random bunch.

I did notice that Lego POTC is more puzzle orientated than your usual Lego game and there is some backtracking during levels. I have to admit that it’s probably the most enjoyable Lego game since Star Wars, but it’s also the most complicated…at least from the levels that I played. I can see the difficulty being quite off-putting to kids, which the game is clearly aimed at. But maybe it will be simpler in the later levels.

Overall I was impressed with how the game is shaping up compared to past Lego games, but time will tell if the rest of the game is as good as the few levels that I played.