Disney Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End

Most film tie-ins of the era settled for a light combo counter and a lot of crates. Eurocom went a different way here: the sword duels are built around timing rather than volume, with blocks, parries and counters that actually punish you for holding the attack button. Enemy officers and named opponents will stalemate you until you read their rhythm. It is closer in spirit to a simplified fencing game than to the beat 'em up template the license would have justified.

The script stitches together Dead Man's Chest and At World's End, which is ambitious for a licensed release and produces the usual compression problems. Scenes arrive without much setup, and if you had not seen the films the plot is a series of names and betrayals. What holds it together is the cast rotation. Jack fights with feints and cheap shots, Will is the straight swordsman, Elizabeth is faster and lighter, and each one changes how a duel reads.

Jack's dishonourable tricks are the best idea in the game. Throwing sand, kicking, using the environment mid-duel, all of it fits the character better than a special-move meter would have, and it gives the fights a comic timing that the Disney license rarely earns. There is a jackanism system of unlockable moves that rewards playing well rather than grinding.

Everything around the combat is more ordinary. Level layouts are corridors with occasional platforming and grapple points, the camera fights you in tight ship interiors, and the PS2 version runs at a lower fidelity than its contemporaries on newer hardware, with muddy textures and short draw distances. There is a duelling mode for a second player that is thin but genuinely fun in short bursts, and some collectible-hunting that mostly pads the runtime.

What survives is the one system the developers clearly cared about. Swordfighting that asks you to watch an opponent instead of outpacing him was not a common request in 2007, and it still gives these duels a pulse that most movie games never found. The rest is scaffolding around a good idea, and you can feel the difference the moment a blade crosses yours.