Your favourite Lego videogame franchise returns, this time to the high seas

Tell you what, Traveller's Tales must really like Lego. Even though the Cheshire (England) based videogames developer has only been making these kind of games since 2005, by the end of this year they will have made... twelve? We think it's twelve... Lego games, and they don't show any signs of getting bored. Their next title - Lego: Pirates of the Caribbean, sets to continue their tradition of high quality and fun games based on the iconic building blocks.
 

A boy and his dog... and Jack...

And quality really is the key word here. Considering this is a license product (and a bit of a movie tie-in as well considering it's coinciding with the new film), and considering this is, for all intensive purposes, a game about a child's toy, we wouldn't be surprised if the development wasn't up to standard. Shortcuts, cut backs, time constraints... these are all things that we've all seen before in videogames, and will do so again, but it not here. If nothing else, this is a well made and well thought out video game.

Lego Pirates of the Caribbean spans all three films, as well as the upcoming fourth outing, and has one level for each film, plus a fifth secret level that can only be unlocked by collecting special bricks. Each level has a number of areas you can play through, and each level is presented in an almost maze-like way. It's fair open in that you can theoretically go anywhere the level allows, but some obstacles require you do things in a certain order, which we will come to in a bit later.

Previous Lego games have always had a theme or a focus (other than the IP they're based on). For example, in Clone Wars, there was a light dabbling of RTS to fit the warring time-period. In Pirates, the themes revolve around suitably piratey-type things like Jack's compass, which is key to the puzzle-based core of the game. There are 70 possible characters to unlock, and each has a unique ability that will help the player progress through certain areas of each level. This means that players may need to go back bits of levels, and maybe even past levels, so they can pass through an obstacle that was previously impenetrable to them.



That's not to say that everyone has different abilities - the game does span four films after all, and in the story-driven campaign mode, certain characters will only appear in certain levels depending on what film it's based on. As such, there will be repetition as characters are swapped out, however their ability must remain available. In free play mode however, where you get just do any level you want independent of each other, you get access to all the characters you currently have available to you. Still, the levels won't have changed so much tin free play mode, so you will still need the same ability sets to get through

A key feature in this game, although not brand new, is the dynamic split screen for co-op gameplay. It's been present in recent Lego games, and now the formula has been further improved. Each player can take control of any 'free' (as in, AI controlled) Lego character, and can move and operate independent of each other provided it's still within the same segment. If one person moves to the next, he or she will drag everyone along with them. The screen splits apart and rejoins seamlessly, as players move away from each other, and the split is tilted in accordance to where your partner is, which is very useful in terms of screen real estate.
 

High-Def Lego Mayhem

If you like past Lego games, there's no reason to think that you won't like this one... unless the IP itself puts you off. Still, it's not like it actually has Orlando Bloom in it... just a mute Lego characterised version of him. The Lego-license franchise has always been about light hearted yet challenging fun, and Lego Pirates is no different. It's taken everything that it's learned from games previous, and applied it to its own unique formula to create something great. Lego: Pirates of the Caribbean is due out on PC, Wii, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, as well as Nintendo and handheld platforms on May 10th in North America and May 13th in Europe.

Top Game Moment: Something about Lego Jack's cheeky grin always makes me smile.