Pirates of the Caribbean is a 2003 video game for
XboxThe Xbox is a video game console produced by Microsoft. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast, and Nintendo's GameCube...
and
WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces...
, developed by
AkellaAkella is a Russian software company specializing in the development, publishing and distribution of computer games and multimedia products. The founders of Akella met in 1993 and decided to start a company together, and in 1995 formed Akella...
and published by
Bethesda SoftworksBethesda Softworks, LLC, a ZeniMax Media Company, is a developer and publisher of video games. The company is based in Rockville, Maryland, in the United States...
. A
PlayStation 2The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony. The PS2 console is the sequel to the original PlayStation console. The successor to the PlayStation, and the predecessor to the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation 2 forms part of the PlayStation series of video game...
version was also originally in development, but was later canceled.
An unrelated game by the same name was also released for mobile phones, as was a
Game Boy AdvanceThe Game Boy Advance is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color...
game.
Pirates of the Caribbean is a
action role-playing gameAn action role-playing game is an loosely-defined video game genre based on role-playing combat systems. Games in the genre features an gameplay much more similar to action games rather than an genuine Role-playing game system.-Classic action RPGs:...
in which the player, as Captain Nathaniel Hawk, goes on a series of quests for any one of the countries that control the islands of the
CaribbeanThe Caribbean is a region consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands , and the surrounding coasts...
in the 17th Century.
Pirates of the Caribbean is a 2003 video game for
XboxThe Xbox is a video game console produced by Microsoft. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast, and Nintendo's GameCube...
and
WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces...
, developed by
AkellaAkella is a Russian software company specializing in the development, publishing and distribution of computer games and multimedia products. The founders of Akella met in 1993 and decided to start a company together, and in 1995 formed Akella...
and published by
Bethesda SoftworksBethesda Softworks, LLC, a ZeniMax Media Company, is a developer and publisher of video games. The company is based in Rockville, Maryland, in the United States...
. A
PlayStation 2The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony. The PS2 console is the sequel to the original PlayStation console. The successor to the PlayStation, and the predecessor to the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation 2 forms part of the PlayStation series of video game...
version was also originally in development, but was later canceled.
An unrelated game by the same name was also released for mobile phones, as was a
Game Boy AdvanceThe Game Boy Advance is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color...
game.
Xbox/PC version
Pirates of the Caribbean is a
action role-playing gameAn action role-playing game is an loosely-defined video game genre based on role-playing combat systems. Games in the genre features an gameplay much more similar to action games rather than an genuine Role-playing game system.-Classic action RPGs:...
in which the player, as Captain Nathaniel Hawk, goes on a series of quests for any one of the countries that control the islands of the
CaribbeanThe Caribbean is a region consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands , and the surrounding coasts...
in the 17th Century. The player can buy new ships, recruit a crew and hire officers who will follow Hawk on his quest and help him in battle. The game features gameplay that takes place both on land and at sea, and allows the player to upgrade their character by earning skill points and gain new abilities.
The game was originally developed under the name
Sea Dogs II, and was to be the sequel to
Sea DogsSea Dogs is a Russian 2000 computer role-playing game for Windows developed by Akella and published by Bethesda Softworks. In it, the player is the captain of a ship and can serve as a privateer to a European power, or as a pirate...
, which was released in the year 2000. Apart from the pirate theme, the setting and the presence of the
Black PearlThe Black Pearl, originally EItC Wicked Wench, is a fictional ship in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. The Black Pearl is easily recognised by her distinctive black hull and sails. This...
, the game otherwise has few connections to the
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black PearlPirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is a 2003 adventure film, based on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney theme parks...
film, which was released around the same time as the game.
The PC version of this game is one of the first video games with multi-threaded code that is optimized for the Intel's
Hyper-ThreadingHyper-threading is Intel's term for its simultaneous multithreading implementation in their Pentium 4, Atom, and Core i7 CPUs.Hyper-threading is an Intel-proprietary technology used to improve parallelization of computations performed on PC microprocessors...
technology.
Actress
Keira KnightleyKeira Christina Knightley is an English film actress. She began her career as a child and came to international prominence in 2003 after co-starring in the films Bend It Like Beckham and the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy....
, who played
Elizabeth SwannElizabeth Swann is a fictional character in the Walt Disney Pictures Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise. She appears in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and its two sequels, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End...
in the film series, voiced the narrator (a single cutscene at the beginning) in the game.
Plot
After a fierce storm, Captain Nathaniel Hawk arrives on the island of Oxbay. His first mate Malcolm Hatcher is retiring, and so Hawk must hire a new first mate and crew. As he leaves Oxbay, a French armada attacks the colony and captures it. Hawk manages to slip away and warn the English governor on Redmond Island that Oxbay was attacked. The governor sends Hawk on a series of quests, until Hawk meets an old inventor who aids him in finding a treasure that could defeat the ghost ship called the Black Pearl. There is also a large number of side quests. For instance, in one such side mission Hawk is enlisted to help a Dutch colonist find several kidnapped children.
The Black Pearl
The Black Pearl is in this game but it is unknown if
BarbossaHector Barbossa or "Captain Barbossa" is a fictional character and pirate in the popular Disney film trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean. Barbossa was first introduced in the series as the primary antagonist and pirate captain of the Black Pearl after committing mutiny against the ship's former...
is the captain (although when one looks at the code for the game, Barbossa is set as the ship's default captain). It cannot be destroyed. At night you see the Black Pearl's crew as skeletons. It can only be seen during the middle of the game and the end of the game—however, some people have reported seeing it at random points in the game.
POTC Build Modification
The PC version of this game was later modified by the PiratesAhoy http://www.piratesahoy.net community. This project eventually became the unified POTC Build Mod. The Build Mod heavily patches and updates the game, and at August 2009 is in its 14th Version. Visit http://www.potc.moddb.com or http://wiki.piratesahoy.net for further information.
Game Boy Advance version
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is a 2003 video game for
Game Boy AdvanceThe Game Boy Advance is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color...
.
Plot
The game doesn't share storyline with the Bethesda game for
WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces...
and
XboxThe Xbox is a video game console produced by Microsoft. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast, and Nintendo's GameCube...
, instead it tells the story of a younger Jack Sparrow and how he escaped from the island after being betrayed by his crew.
Reception
The reception for this game was largely mediocre.
IGNIGN is a multimedia news and reviews website that focuses heavily on video games...
gave the game a 5.5 claiming:
"Though the game looks and sounds like a quality game design, the focus on graphics and sound just can't help along the fact that Pirates of the Caribbean on the Game Boy Advance just isn't that much fun to play."
The average review score for the game is 4.9 out of 10.
Mobile phone version
The mobile phone version was developed by Flying Tiger Development and published through Walt Disney Internet Group on July 25, 2003, in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.