LEGO: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game (Essentials) (PlayStation 3)

Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game is a game based on the four popular movies; The Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man’s Chest, At World’s End and On Stranger Tides. This game mixes these movies with the child-friendly Lego style of other Lego games, but for the most part everything is still the same. The player takes control of characters like; Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth and Bootstrap and uses their special abilities to solve the puzzles. Most of the puzzles require the player to build items with Lego-bricks or to open locked doors, aside from the character that are available the player can also take control of animals like a dog or a bird. The story allows the player to choose on of the four movies and a chapter to play, each movie has four chapters.

It starts out with the pirate “Jack Sparrow” and the blacksmith “Will Turner” meeting each other and dueling, after Jack failed to beat Will and is put in prison the ship known as “The Black Pearl” arrives at the port and raids the city. Will frees Jack after his love, Elizabeth got captured by the pirates. Jack and Will steal a ship from the navy and take it to the pirate city Tortuga where they assemble a crew and follow The Pearl to where they are taking Elizabeth.

The second movie is about Jack and the rest of the crew who are trying to find the chest which contains the hearth of Davy Jones. If they have the hearth they can avoid the wrath of Jones. The third movie is about the battle between the Navy and the pirates, the Navy has the chest with the hearth now and uses it to force Davy Jones into fighting for them. Jack, Elizabeth and Will want to fight them off by uniting all the pirates under one banner, but it’s a race against the clock.

The fourth movie is about Jack and Captain Barbosa who are trying to find a source for everlasting life. They are however hunted by the religious Spanish navy who want to destroy the source because they believe nobody should have everlasting life. Once again it’s a big race.

There is also the Free Play mode, this mode allows players to revisit chapters they have already finished and play with any character they want. By playing this mode the player can find items that were previously locked away from them because he couldn’t use a special ability required to open solve one of the puzzles. These items can be traded for special features or items, the player can even use them to buy new characters. They can spend this money in the HUB world which is a pirate bay with several shops, the story can be resumed at the ship in the harbor.