Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game is exactly what any one would expect, provided they've played any of the other similar
Lego games.
This game will take you through the four existing films, Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man's Chest, At World's End and the most recent release, On Stranger Tides. As always, the game follows the movies rather closely, if you don't mind the overly-slapstick manner that it conveys the story.
Each movie has five levels filled with collectibles that you will have to go back to multiple times in order to get all the goodies. Long-time followers of the series will know that the Story Mode of a level restricts you on the characters you play as and teases you with areas you can't get to. When Free Play is unlocked for that level though, you can go back in with all of the characters you have unlocked and make your way into all of the various locations you could only see before.
This time around, there are some new skills and character types that add a bit of variety to the game. While all characters can build, some items are broken machines that only certain characters, like Gibbs and Mr. Brown, can fix. Other places can only be reached by the cursed crew of the Flying Dutchman, while characters that don't need to breathe, i.e. the Cursed, the Dutchman crew or zombies, can walk along the bottom of lakes and rivers indefinitely in order to get to hard to reach locations and switches.
There are, of course, the standard character types like the ones that can blow up shiny Lego parts and the ones that can double jump, but probably the most interesting character in the whole bunch is Jack Sparrow himself. The main reason is because one of the collectibles in each level is eight items hidden such that only Jack's compass can find them. So while the game boasts the standard Mini-kit (in this case, ships in bottles) and stud collection (called "True Pirate" this time around), there is also Jack's Compass items that need to be ferreted out.
I do have to say though, that there were two separate occasions in different parts of the game where my Wii locked up. I don't know if it was from overheating or what, but I've never had that particular system lock up on me before.
