Billy Tompson: Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean preview

Aaaargh ? Lego game veterans will find themselves in comfortingly familiar territory with this swashbuckling addition to the series

The Lego video games series must be the envy of many developers in the industry. While other companies fall over themselves to produce the next mega-selling casual/hardcore crossover hit, Traveller's Tales has quietly churned out the gaming equivalent of a chain of Pixar movies.

The company's titles boast cross-generational appeal, easy pick-up-and-play controls, smarts and depth which belie the simplistic mechanics ? and all of it comes wrapped in a family-friendly veneer that is cute enough to disarm all but the most curmudgeonly of gamers.

The Lego games sell very well and a lot of them are critically acclaimed. Furthermore, Traveller's Tales has shown an unerring knack at being able to adapt the series' formula to some of biggest blockbuster intellectual property in the entertainment industry ? the likes of Batman, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Harry Potter.

All of this makes the developer an enticing prospect for any company about to release a movie in need of some high-end brand extension. Monolithic entertainment entities, take note: if you have a movie that requires a video game, Traveller's Tales is a pretty safe bet.

So all thing's considered, the most surprising thing about Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean isn't that it exists ? because it's a natural fit for the series ? and it isn't its core gameplay. It's the fact that it's taken Disney this long to have Traveller's Tales weave its Lego magic over one of its blockbuster franchises.

Lego game veterans will find themselves in comfortingly familiar territory. The knock on Lego games in recent years is that the series' gameplay template has been left basically unchanged since the first Lego Star Wars game. That's certainly true of Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean, but it's not likely to put too much of a dent in the enjoyment level for punters. The lion's share of activity is taken up by charging around, smashing things up, collecting Lego studs, solving puzzles and hunting for collectibles. However, as with all Lego titles, Traveller's Tales has added quite a few tweaks and tucks to the overall experience, as well as some new functions which offer the game some more depth.

There are more than 70 characters for players to unlock and all of them have some special ability. Jack Sparrow, for example, has his magic compass which reveals hidden collectibles and trinkets in the game. Will Turner hurls axes as a ranged weapon. One pirate has a blunderbuss. Another is able to hurl his glass eye around (although it wasn't revealed in my playthrough just how this actually helps).

There's also a new system throughout the game which makes the characters easier to use and has allowed the developers to create some brand new puzzles. Icons will sometimes appear above a character's head, indicating the players need to find a specific item in their environment which will allow them to add a new member to their party. Once this is done, they gain access to that character's special ability. They can also bring up a character-wheel and switch between any character they've added to their party on the fly.

Another new feature is Super Freeplay mode, which is a beefed up, more free-flowing version of the Freeplay mode in previous Lego titles. In past games, players could select characters in a hub area and take them into levels to unlock new challenges and find collectibles. With Super Freeplay mode, they can switch at any time to any of the characters they've unlocked in the game at any point.

While the ability to switch characters on the fly is a boon, the best parts of Lego Pirates come from the way in which Traveller's Tales has adapted the movie franchise's aesthetic to the game. The best place to start with Lego Pirates is with its gorgeous production values. As is the case with every other Lego title, the game looks fantastic and the characters literally look as if they've been polished until they shine. In terms of the movie franchise's aesthetic qualities, Traveller's Tales has everything on point.

The characters are by turns hilarious and endearing; the Lego Jack Sparrow minces around the scenes like his real-life counterpart, Will Turner looks deadly earnest and Barbosa hits the right note between being menacing and mischievous all at once. Once again, all cut-scenes moving the plot forward contain hilarious silent mugging from all the characters involved. The environments are superb in their presentation and variety; they all look like giant playsets, and players will find themselves trundling along sun-bathed beaches, mixing it up in a barfight in Tortuga or fighting a battle on the deck of the Black Pearl in a hurricane.

The experience of playing the game is almost guaranteed to spread a smile over one's face. The puzzles are inventive and challenging; players won't saunter straight through them, but at the same time, they aren't so difficult that anyone will give up too quickly. There are plenty of fights to have, items to smash and buckles to swash, sure, but the developers have included a lot of elements based around the movie's set-pieces too. At one point, players will find themselves rolling around in giant ball-shaped bone cages from the second film, or fighting high up in the rigging of the Flying Dutchman in the finale of the third film. They'll also fire off canons, zip up mastheads by cutting ropes on pulleys and, at some stage, find themselves riding a pig.

All of the action in Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean is shot through with a boisterous, ramshackle charm, making the game very easy to forgive for some of its overly familiar elements. Whether you're a fan of the movie or game franchise, this new Lego entry looks set to satisfy all but the most sniffy of gamers. You may have a sense you've played some of this game before, but that's an issue that's hard to focus on when you're weaving around as Captain Jack Sparrow on the back of a pig.

? Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean will be out on 13 May 2011 for Wii, PC, PS3, Xbox 360, 3DS, PSP and DS

Nick Cowen

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