The long awaited Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is finally out in the cinema - was it worth the wait? I'm not sure. With it comes the inevitable movie tie-in game, and while it succeeds in the sense that it remains faithful to the movie, it fails to provide unique gameplay.

Disney Interactive Studios have been taking their time with this one and have tied in parts of the storylines of Dead Man's Chest and At World's End. The game is a story-guided adventure that starts with the Dead Man's Chest plot, with you playing the conniving Captain Jack Sparrow who is trying to get out of the Prison Fortress. This leads onto Jack attempting to recover the heart of Davy Jones so he will not have to pay his debts to him, moving on to the events in At World's End, where all the Pirate Lords are reunited in order to retrieve the heart once and for all. Most scenes from the movie are shown, although there are bits that you might not recognise.

Most of your time is spent playing as Jack Sparrow, but as the storyline moves on you also play as Will Turner, Elizabeth Swann and several other characters. Disappointingly, all the characters seem to play exactly the same, which amazes me, as for part of the Challenge Mode you need to collect all the characters. As Disney Interactive Studios spent much longer making this game, I have to wonder why they didn't add different strengths, weaknesses and abilities to each of the characters, including the bosses you need to defeat.

There's certainly lots of sword-fighting though, as well as the use of extra weapons like grenades, guns and knives. Unfortunately, this isn't as exciting as it sounds! The Wiimote is not used efficiently and the sword-fighting soon becomes very tiresome, plus my arm is still aching from performing the same repetitive left and right motions over and over again. Occasionally the Wiimote needs to be moved in the upward direction to perform one of the few combo attacks available, but it's not enough to dispel the tedium. When fighting more than one opponent, you can use the nunchuck to go back and forwards from each enemy. You can also block attacks, but if there are three or four enemies surrounding you then there's no chance to block them all, as someone will hit you from behind. The grenades and guns work well enough, but the knives do barely any damage and are really difficult to aim. While you are fighting, the background interaction is poor too; bystanders don't budge, staying in the same place and failing to do anything even vaguely interesting.

Each level begins with a cut scene (which you can't skip past, even if you have died and have to repeat the level) that tells you what you need to accomplish. After this you just wander around fighting enemies who all look similar and smashing boxes to find health, weapons and pendants. An arrow occasionally appears below your character to show you which way you need to go, or an item is highlighted yellow, denoting that you need to move over to it and hit the C button to carry out an action. There is no control over the camera, which proves annoying on occasions where you can't see what you are doing, and the camera changes from one angle to the next without any warning. In each level something called a 'Jackanism' can happen, which is where Jack re-enacts a scenario. A box is shown with a button or direction that must be pressed quickly. The problem with this is that you're so focused on watching for the next button that you don't really see what is happening in the scenario! If you fail then you don't get another try unless you restart the whole level, but if you do complete it then you are rewarded, normally with a charm, which can be used in one of the mini-games.

These mini-games, including the likes of Pirate Dice and Pirate Poker, break up the game and add in a bit more enjoyment. Sometimes you might need to play in order to complete a sub-mission. Pirate Dice is like the game Bluff; each player gets a go at guessing how many of the dice that have been rolled will show the same face numbers. Those charms you collected in the main levels come into play here to give you the upper hand, allowing you to see all your opponents' hands or help you not lose any money that you wager when playing a round. The mini-games are fun, but they can't change the fact that the gameplay is completely linear, and the majority of the game is for one player, missing out on the opportunity for some co-op fun. There is a Duelling mode where you can fight against a friend, but you need to unlock this in Challenge Mode before you can even use it. In Challenge Mode itself, you can play in one or two player modes and have to accomplish certain goals in order to gain characters or notoriety. There are three levels to complete for each of the twelve main levels, which include combat, hit combo challenge and collecting enough loot before the time runs out. Again, this is a nice little extra but nothing that will keep you interested for very long.

As you collect more and more characters, you get a real feel for how realistic the characters look compared to their movie counterparts. You can see a good effort to detail in each character's face and clothing; it's just a shame that the gameplay didn't get as much attention. There are twelve different levels that take place in such locations as the Prison Fortress, Isla Cruces, Singapore, Davy Jones' Locker and Maelstorm. Some of these reuse the same scenery, which feels a bit repetitive, but overall the environments are of a good quality. The levels have you fighting on a boat or walking around the town and interacting with other characters to get information. It can be frustrating that you can't change the camera angles, but most of the time you can traverse the environments with a good view of your surroundings. Cut scenes are also used frequently, adding character to the game experience and giving you a better idea of what the story is about.

The sounds used are appropriate but fail to make much of an impact. Some of the movie themes have been used to compliment the action scenes, which is a nice touch, but where the music succeeds, the sound effects soon become repetitive, thanks to those constantly clanking swords. The character voices show an impressive likeness to the movie actors though, including Jack Sparrow's trademark humour, which is delivered with style here.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is a reasonable movie tie-in, but as a game it doesn't really succeed. The characters and scenes have a wonderful resemblance to the movies, while the soundtrack adds more authenticity, all of which will be appreciated by fans of the film trilogy. However, with repetitive, linear gameplay and very limited sword-fighting action, even fans of the film will struggle to really enjoy the gameplay and if you haven't seen the films then At World's End definitely won't fulfil your expectations for an action game.

Reviewed by Gina Harrison for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).