Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End [Wii]

>>Pirates of the Carribbean: At World's End Review for X360
>>Pirates of the Carribbean: At World's End Review for DS

Despite what high-school productions of Macbeth may illustrate, swordfighting is actually pretty hard work. So is making a good movie-based video game. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End for Wii fails at both of these tasks, and leaves you with a metaphorical pain in the neck and an all-too-real pain in the shoulder.

When the Wii was first announced, our inner pessimist worried about the consequences of flailing our arms around like mad morons for hours at a time. Zelda: Twilight Princess allayed those fears by only requiring subtle, short movements for swinging your sword. At World's End is at the other end of the spectrum, and though the game has many other flaws, this one thing is more than enough to put Pirates into a watery grave.

You swing your sword a lot in this game: it's the bulk of the gameplay. But you can't just flick the Wii remote to slash at enemies; instead, you must do large, sweeping motions that aren't even recognized a substantial portion of the time. Enemies fight tooth and nail, so taking down even the simplest of foes is an uncomfortable, painful flail-fest. Add in poor enemy targeting, gang-ups on your poor lone hero and no good way to retreat, and you have one of the worst combat systems in all of the video games world.

Better use of the Wii's controller comes in the game's button-matching sequences that hark back to the old Dragon's Lair arcade games, but even these have their problems. Accuracy is key here, and in the absence of a good system implemented to recognize what you're doing, you'll end up cursing like a sailor. If done right, these would have been great fun. As is, it's a missed opportunity.