So for those who have no idea how awesome pirates are (I'm looking at all you ninja fans), being a pirate is awesome because you don't have to shower, ever, and you get to spend your time getting into awesome sword duels and gathering up treasure to hoard. Lego: Pirates of the Caribbean seeks to bring the awesomeness of pirate existence to gamers everywhere by using the Pirates of the Caribbean movies as a backdrop.

In it, your main character is Captain Jack Sparrow; reprobate and slightly insane pirate captain who manages to outsmart loads of people and prove time and again that he really is the best pirate ever. Following his exploits through the four Pirates of the Caribbean movies, this game tries to pull out key moments for your Lego characters to play in, giving you the experience of living out the movie. As you progress through the game, you are treated to cut scenes showing plot from the movies and then getting the opportunity to play the events and make them happen.

The game is played with characters from the four movies; each different section of the game allowing you to use the characters that were important to that section of the movie. For example, during a scene in one of the movies where two characters are stranded, it's those two characters you play in the game. Each different character type has different skills that are needed to complete puzzles in the game to progress, much like any other Lego series game. And as the game is completed, more characters with different abilities open up, allowing the player to revisit stages to open previously inaccessible areas with the new character abilities they've acquired. Beyond playing the actual game there are tons of items to collect over the course of the game world, as well as multiple different areas to unlock if you're seeking to gain 100% completion of the game itself.

Fighting is necessary to progress but limited, with the game more focused on puzzle completion. For example, in order to progress in an area you may have to roll a barrel over to a depression in the floor to get a gate to open. And because it's a Lego game, you may actually have to bust open an object with your sword first and then put the bouncing pieces back together to form the barrel. Because all Lego games seek to encourage the actual Lego experience, players are often required to break stuff up and put it back together again to form something else that's awesome and useful.

The game can be played with one or two players cooperatively. Unlike in many games where the characters share the same screen area with the camera progressively pulling out to show both characters moving around or with a fixed split screen, Lego Pirates features a unique split screen experience. As the characters move onto different areas of the screen, the display splits in half, allowing each character to shift around without the other needing to be near them. And as one character needs more area of the screen, say for instance to jump around, the split in the middle of the screen shifts around to provide more viewing area. So instead of being stuck in the middle of the screen, the split may be at a diagonal as the game tries to compensate for everyone's movements. It's an interesting take on the split screen experience but it can be a little disorienting for some as they adjust to the screen constantly shifting the viewable area as the players move around. If you don't have a second player to help out, the game can be entirely played solo. The second player is more helpful in this game than necessary, as the puzzles have been designed to allow one person to easily switch between character types to complete all of them.

Story is simply handled by following the movie storyline, but one thing I did notice right away is that if you don't know the plot from the movie, you won't be able to understand it in the game. Sure, the Legos do a pretty good job of showing us 'something' that's going on that has something to do with the pirates we can see walking around on the screen. But because it's Lego, some of the meanness is censored and in doing so, makes several scenes very different from how they actually play out. Limitations with the Legos movements also makes it difficult to get certain ideas across; and the fact that the Legos don't speak at all simply tops it all off. After a few cut scenes I was really sick and tired of listening to the grunts and sighs of the characters. Although, I have to admit, Jack Sparrow's sounded very much like they took actual sound bites from the movies for his grunting which was interesting to hear. The other characters made me want to start plugging up my ears or at least hitting the mute button during some of the cut scenes.