REVIEW - Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

GENRE(S): Action / Adventure
RELEASED: July 2003
AVAILABLE ON: GBA
DEVELOPER(S): Pocket Studios
PUBLISHER(S): TDK Mediactive
PLAYERS: 1

Pirates of the Caribbean is very likely the most important and influential movie franchise of the century. Johnny Depp's role as the eccentric and so deliciously "off" pirate captain Jack Sparrow is hailed as one of the best and most consistent performances in the history of cinema. The first film in the series that recently spawned its fourth was Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which premiered in July, 2003. Slightly prior to its release, two different Pirates of the Caribbean video games were made. The PC and Xbox game simply entitled Pirates of the Caribbean came first, and featured an exclusive protagonist named Nathaniel Hawk on a series of piratey quests. The Game Boy Advance exclusive's named after the movie, but it has virtually nothing to do with it. Oh, and by the way: it sucks...

...Really bad eggs

Jack Sparrow is the captain of a pirate ship named The Black Pearl. His first mate Hector Barbossa arranges a mutiny against him and throws him overboard. Bent on getting his ship back, Jack goes on a treasure hunt across the Caribbean to gain the resources to confront Barbossa.

Easy, soldier.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is one of my favourite films of all time, and resulted in Johnny Depp becoming my favourite male actor. I went into the game with no expectations at all, but I at least expected it to somehow capture the essence of the Pirates franchise and take advantage of the magnificent character of Jack Sparrow. The presentation's an utter failure. It's like "Filmation presents: Pirates of the Caribbean". Filmation was a production company that produced cheap versions and translations of classic cartoons and stories back in the day. There's even a SNES game of their version of Snow White, which I almost included in the marathon until I found out the cheap truth. First of all, the Jack Sparrow in this game is NOTHING like the real deal, he's a weird, muscular caricature that just remotely resembles Jack in look. He talks all articulately, and tough, there's not a drop of the delicious awkwardness of Jack Sparrow in him. This game simply has nothing to do with Pirates of the Caribbean, it's not even really a prequel, but rather a cheap, dumb, awkward, alternative storyline to The Curse of the Black Pearl. I'm amazed Disney Interactive put their name on this trash. All hail capitalism! That's it on how far the game is from the Pirates media franchise, let's see how it truly is under all that ugly coating.

Another town to plunder. Looks exactly the
same as the last one, but who cares?

The graphics and level design don't look that bad until you realize that the game looks exactly the same from the beginning to the end. Besides, the character design is just stupid, you need to forget the name of the game from the get-go if you want to enjoy it by any measure. The music sucks - it's not only that it doesn't sound like Pirates of the Caribbean at all, it doesn't even sound remotely like any epic pirate adventure should. It sounds like... well... a Filmation movie. As I already said, the cutscenes look like one, too.

There are two kinds of levels. Usually you control "Jack" by foot in "different" towns and caverns, search for key items and treasures, and fight off some wild animals, British soldiers and smugglers if need be. Usually you have no need to do that. You can just force your way to your final destination, and the mission is complete even if you didn't kill one dude on the way. The open sea combat is ripped straight off The Curse of Monkey Island; all you need to do is blast ships into oblivion until the game informs you that you're done, and in time, you gain more efficient cannons. This is it, that's all there is. Your companions and employers send you out on fancy sounding quests, but they're all exactly the same! Also, it's almost impossible to die in this game up until you meet enemies with pistols. Your own pistol is efficient, but hard to use, and these guys can shoot you in the time it takes you to whip out your cutlass. Getting shot kills you instantly, by the way.

Rumble in the jungle.

There's a total of 22 tedious, boring missions in this game set in the same damn locations, and the game never picks up the pace, or introduces any sort of variability. It's damn easy, and it's got to be one of the most boring games I've ever played. Sucking some more blood out of the game is the simply awful presentation of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. There's nothing cool about this game, absolutely nothing. "Jack" doesn't even move fast enough to keep you interested in making progress.

If you still want to give the game a shot, please at least forget its name - then maybe you'll be able to enjoy it for more than five minutes. The game is pure mockery of the great Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and it isn't even a decent game in itself. What use does it have? I can't come up with a single one. 

GRAPHICS : 5.8
SOUND : 4.0
PLAYABILITY : 4.0
LIFESPAN : 2.5
CONCLUSION : 3.7

TRIVIA

a.k.a. Pirates of the Caribbean

GameRankings: 50.33%