For a movie tie in, At World's End is a straightforward action-adventure game and is worth the time of playing it.
(-) once you master it combat is incredibly shallow; pirate poker and other mini games can be a waste of time; camera can be hostile on occasions
Pirates of the Caribbean is an action adventure game which you control Jack Sparrow and other characters of the movie in the order which things really happen. There are basic combat scenes as well as rescuing other crew mates and even bonus games that you'll play along the way. We've all heard that movie tie-in games often get low ratings and have bad reputations of not meeting up anywhere within the vicinity of the movies they were based on, but as a movie tie-in At World's End turned out to be a very decent game.
First I'll discuss the game's presentation. I'm having a hard time believing that Gamespot gave this version a demerit for bad visuals, because even though I haven't seen any of the other versions At World's End is definitely one of the better looking PS2 games. The character model likeness does a decent job but they do look just a bit chunky, but the crisp and colorful environments are brimming with beauty and they make up for them. But the camera couldn't be spoken so well of. As you fight certain battles of enter certain rooms, the camera will take a completely different angle. I know this was meant to add some authentic resemblance with the movie, but it has gotten in the way of game-play. For example, I've entered a room through the left then found myself moving down with a bird's eye view. But the controls remain the same and it can be hard to adjust to different places in the game.
The game-play is pretty basic as soon as you get the concept down. You use the shape buttons to perform different combos, R1 to block when you have the supplied "block points", and R1 to use item or power-up. And if you're a Wii player, the controls are much more demanding as they involve swinging the remote in different directions for combo attacks, which I would imagine would be painful. I found the PS2 controls to be serviceable, but they don't add anything new to the table that hasn't been done somewhere else before.
In the story mode there are also little mini-games such as pirate dice and pirate poker. These games are pretty self explanatory, and although they don't have much substance or entertainment they are a nice distraction from the main game. Another thing I found to be neat were the presence of checkpoints almost every time you complete a task, because it allowed me to advance through the game at a steady pace despite how much trouble I was having with a particular part.
At World's End also has a multiplayer mode with dueling, where you fight one-on-one with your friend, and other challenges like who can collect the most loot, defeat the most enemies, and make the most combos. However most of these features are pretty shallow and usually only entertaining long enough to show off the game to someone else, unless you both are die-hard fans of the movie (excuse the pun, arg). There are a large amount of arenas and characters you can unlock for these modes, though all of them play nearly the same way and only true fans of the movie will find difference among them.
Some downsides I found were that some of the missions weren't clearly explained in the game and it can be difficult at times to figure out what you need to do. The game's missions can be pretty precise, like defeating an old lady by dropping her in a pan as Jack Sparrow hits her with a pot, and avoiding a mascaraed of enemies on a platform floating in water by destroying the branches. For a long time I was stuck at those particular parts because I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do. Also even though I felt the combat scenes were pretty challenging at first, that was before I learned you can recover most of your health if you pick up a fried chicken (ummm? Yeah....) and use it when you get low on health, therefore the game's difficulty has lowered immensely.
Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End is a good game, especially for a movie tie-in which everyone knows those games usually don't score well on the charts. Sharp graphics, a lengthy single player mode with bonus games, and a passable multiplayer mode. But it is held back by overly simplified game-play, sometimes unwieldy camera, and confusing directions for missions. Fans of the movies may like this but others may need to be generous in order to find something great out of this game.