Lego Pirates is another worthwhile addition to this library of games.
GAMEPLAY - I'll assume we all know how these play by now, so I'll talk about what makes this game unique. The first thing I noticed was the small number of units variety-wise. It seems like everyone either has no weapon, is a woman, has a sword, has a gun, or has a hammer. Those are the only types of units that I've been able to find (along with the dogs and animals you ride around on, but those are a given). The levels also don't have a ton of variety to them. Most take place on a ship, and these can get rather monotonous. There are a couple of really fun levels, most notably the first level of Dead Man's Chest, where you are rolling around in the bone spheres that you're captured in. This ends up being a lot of fun, but the other levels just don't really stand out much. And, like a lot of reviewers say, there are quite a few puzzles that seem unusually difficult to figure out. But really, this is true of most Lego games. One thing I didn't care for was bringing back respawning units, which was something that really annoyed me about Lego Star Wars. Otherwise everything is very familiar here. Same fun building sequences, same slapstick comedy, same long list of unlockables, and the occasional bugs. Compared to other games, this was one of the weaker editions, but I did enjoy it more than I did Lego Batman at least. - 7.5/10
STORY - I'm going to put an N/A here only because the story should be evident to those who are fans of the Pirates movies. To those who aren't, you probably won't get much from what is told here. And honestly, you probably don't care about the story anyway if you haven't seen the movies. - N/A
GRAPHICS - Graphics are still moving in the right direction for Lego games. They're about as good as could be expected, but I just wasn't as wowed as I was with Lego Harry Potter last year. Maybe it's just the colors they were allowed to work with, but I just wasn't as amazed by the settings that this game took place in. The water definitely looked cool though. - 8.5/10
SOUND - The sound is what you'd expect. Your usual Lego grunts and noises coupled with the soundtrack from the movies. I know a lot of people praise the Pirates soundtrack, but other than that one song, it feels only average to me. Still a pretty good presentation though. - 8/10
LENGTH/REPLAY VALUE - I was able to beat this in one night, and obviously you'll want to play through 2 or 3 times to collect everything. Just like with everything else, you can gauge the value here by other Lego games you've played. For me personally, it's fun to collect everything, but once that's over with, it's just going to sit on the shelf until I want a Lego game to play. - 5.5/10
BOTTOM LINE - Lego Pirates doesn't improve anything from past Lego games, unfortunately, but if you enjoyed past Lego games, you'll have fun with this also. My only major problems with it are that it didn't feel like this was given as much devotion and care as other Lego games, and that it felt like it was more of a regression than a progression with certain decisions the developers made. I enjoyed Lego Harry Potter the most out of all the Lego games because it was still somewhat challenging, didn't have too many annoying respawns, and the levels were varied and fun. This game just didn't have those things going for it. Still, if you're a fan of Pirates and a fan of the Lego games, there's no reason you should pass this up. - 7.5/10