Lego Pirates of the Caribbean

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List Price: $19.99
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If you haven't been living under a rock, then you've already heard of the LEGO franchise through its various facets Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Batman, and Harry Potter. And yes, I have them all. :)

This time Lego returns to us with Pirates of the Caribbean! The fun and humor that you've come to know and love in the wordless grunts and gestures used to convey the story is back. The characters that you're familiar with are all there with all the mannerisms, down to the detail of Jack's shambling "not-all-there" gait.

The puzzles and action that are also a part of every Lego game are here as well with some rather new, notable features:

Jack's compass is an element in each level. If there is a special item to be found, activating his compass reveals the path in blue footstep squares like bread crumbs to the treasure he is looking for. If it's buried, your trusty dog can be used to dig it up.

Characters are all switchable, as before, but one of the new (and quite welcome!) features for me was the character wheel which allows you to choose WHICH character you'd like instead of tapping endlessly / by proximity to get the character you want.

Some levels feature "sticky" elements that won't let you fall helplessly as was previously advertised on gaming sites.

I do have some complaints, however:

Level design is still frustrating at times. If your jumps are "not so" or if you scoot 1 mm to the left, you may find yourself missing your destination and sighing grievously.

After how many years...and still no online co-op modes? It's 2011, Traveller's Tales games. Can we get on the ball here?

Despite level design (and if you're used to Lego games, you'll be used to this) and lack of online support, it's still a fun roller-coaster ride through all 4 (yes, you read that right) Pirates movies including:

Curse of the Black Pearl

Dead Man's Chest

At World's End

On Stranger Tides (yep, you get to have a sneak peek at what the next movie might be about otherwise, just play the other 3 until you see it)

The other debate is...get it on PS3 or Wii? Most of my other Lego games are on the Wii, but it does look fantastic on the PS3 in HD (and for the same retail price, mind you). I find that the aiming in the PS3 (when Will throws his ax, for example) is a lot easier than I thought it would be and I don't miss the Wii functionality much as a result. However, I'm sure that the game plays equally well on the Wii so it's completely up to you.

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I bought this game for my 10 year old brother to have fun with but I must admit I had a lot of fun playing with him as well. This is very far from my usual gaming preferances e.g. Assassins Creed, God of War triology etc. but I still had fun playing with my brother. the characters are lively and the cut scenes are funny. The only complaint my brother has about the entire game is that he thinks the characters should talk.

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This game is so well thought out. It's a great family game, one that younger kids would really get a kick out of but that parents would also enjoy. The puzzles and adventures of the lego people are clever yet challenging and the humor that is always apparent in the LEGO games comes out in full force.

My only issue is the split screen when you play with 2 players, the screen splits so you can go off and do different things. Sometimes it is hard to figure out where your player is and where your partners' is, but other than that, play on!

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I may be biased towards this Lego game above others since it's the first one based on a Disney franchise, but I truly believe that it is the best yet. Lego Pirates plays through all four of the Pirates movies, (so be warned that if you play this before seeing On Stranger Tides when it's released, you will find out the storyline for it, not a lot of details, but you will have a general idea of what's going to happen, which I enjoyed.) Each story has five levels, and with each level needed to be played at least twice, (once in story, and once in free play,) for 100% completetion, it goes on for hours of game play.

There are a ton of characters available, some through game play, others for purchase, some with special codes, (which can very easily be found online,) to unlock. Each character boasts certain skills, which can make playing the individual levels tricky. Also, a change for the Lego format, is having to search for the unlockable extras, which you then need enough coins to buy.

The levels themselves are challenging, and require some thinking. It's also easier to switch characters in the game as well, since you can bring up a menu of available characters at all times. In freeplay, it doesn't matter who you select to play with, you have all unlocked characters available to play with, which is a great bonus not found in other games.

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First, let's just get the good part out of the way the game is great. Many fun characters, great hub world, interesting story levels, minikits to find in freeplay it has what you've come to expect and appreciate. Oh, and no lame vehicle levels so that's a plus. It has the new dynamic split screen introduced with Lego Indian Jones 2, so daddy no longer accidentally drags his son to Lego-doom.

Unfortunately, Lego Pirates also keeps the random freezing common in Lego Indiana Jones 2 and Lego Harry Potter. It gets worse the more characters you get, and tends to happen more often with multiplayer and in the hub world. At this point, I think we have to accept that Traveler's Tales in incapable of making a game that doesn't crash. These are full-on screen freeze/have to turn off the PS3 at the back crashes.

So there you have it, I warned my son that Traveler's Tales doesn't make stable games and we would probably have crashes. I reminded him that we stopped playing Lego Indiana Jones 2 because the game was basically broken. But he wanted it, and like Lego IJ2 it was fun but the crashes are becoming more frequent and I suspect he'll give up on the game soon. If your kid loves the Lego games already, it's a no-brainer it really is a great Lego game. But at this point I cannot imagine paying full-price for one of these games they're just broken.