If you love the movies and love achievements, then get this game, but not for any other reason. Rent this, do not buy.
Now, in 2007, in the HD-gen, budgets for video games are significantly bigger than those of even the most high profile movies, and games can't just be scraped together with 5 guys working off their computers in between working on the movie the games are based on. If this happens, it will show, and the game will tank. But, in these early years of video gaming in the HD-gen, games still look like their PS2 or XBOX brethren, and no shameless movie tie-ins have really been eye openers with actual current-gen graphics. Sure, games like KING KONG wowed for their time, but that game was put aside as a special project by Peter Jackson himself, and the game was actually worked on not as a shameless movie tie-in, but as a normal game which happens to be set in the Kong universe.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, released May 5, 2007, is the first real current-gen shameless movie tie-in. And let me say this: if this is what shameless movie tie-ins look, sound, and play like in this generation, then please, keep them coming! PotC:AWE for the XBOX 360's graphics are amazing for a shameless tie-in game. Everything in the game really makes you feel like you're in the second two Pirates of the Caribbean movies (although Tortuga seems a little bit too tame). Almost all of the actors' faces were scanned for the game, and the CG characters from the movie (Davy Jones, the hammerhead shark guy, all of the Flying Dutchman's crew) got their character models in the game from Industrial Light & Magic, the special effects company who did the effects for the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Every character model, even the lesser ones walking around the street are muc more detailed than they would normally be in a movie game (see: Spider-Man 3). But the main characters, like Jack, Will, Barbossa, and Davy Jones look like their human counterparts to the letter. The human characters do have that lifeless look in their eyes, but you don't see them close up much anyway. All of the environments look good as well, or what's there, since most are pretty contained and linear. The levels where it rains look especially good, as the wet ground looks extremely real. But, besides the straight graphics, there are some real problems. The characters' special moves glitch frequently, which leaves you seeing Jack stab through the air next to a guy and things like that. Also, when characters run off the edge of something, they will usually continue their running animation while going straight down instead of their falling animations, which looks weird. Many graphical problems occur through the game, and you will notice each at least once while going through the game.
On the sound side, the score sounds pretty good, although some of the original tracks don't seem like they fit in as well, since it isn't Hans Zimmer doing the music. The real problems with the sound are that none of the actors reprise their roles for the voices and it shows, especially for Will and Elisabeth. For Jack nobody will probably notice, but I sure did, being a huge Pirates of the Caribbean fan. Also, a lot of the parts where it looks like Jack should be takling are replaced with parts where everyone is silent and the characters just make gestures at each other. These are very frequent and especially awkward because Jack is such a talkative fellow in the movies. Plus, the fact that there are only about 20 different things for each enemy type to say gets very annoying, especially when you hear each voice actor's take on a line, making the game sound like an audition where the developers were actually taping their auditions and put them right into the game.
The gameplay is very repetitive, having only two buttons for attack and only really needing to use one move for the whole game if you choose to play it like an **** Pressing A X A can pretty much work on every single enemy you will encounter in your travels, except for the tougher enemies, who can only be killed by doing a special move, which only requires killling about 10 other guys with said button combination and then going up to the tougher guy, pressing A about eight times, then holding L and pressing one of the buttons for one of the special moves you acquire through the game. The only variations in combat are the one on one sword duels with harder enemies in the game, which all start out with an awkward "Virtua Fighter-style introduce both characters before starting the battle" scene where Jack looks at the guy and makes a face and then the guy gets mad and does like a thumbs down, and then you go into the sword duel. All you have to do for these is press up, down, or forward to attack, and press which one of those the other guy is doing to defend. These portions are fine when you're winning, but can be frustrating when you start losing, and it can be hard to get out of a slump. Most of the reason why these don't work very well is because the analog sticks are less responsive than it would have been to use the face buttons for this sort of thing. The platforming sections can be fun when you're balancing on a beam or crawling across ledges, but the platforming falls flat when it requires precision. That f-cking Shipwreck City level took me about 15 tries just because of the imprecise nature of the level design versus the way Jack jumps. The reason why I lost so many times is because if you fall in the water, you lose the level. Yes, I know. Jack Sparrow shows in the first movie that he is in fact a very strong swimmer, so don't ask me why the developers decided to make him die on impact with water. But, then again, Frogger can't touch water either. The only real variation is finding the various items scattered throughout the levels, which give you an achievement for finding all seven of them in each level (and each achievement is worth 25 GP, plus two that are worth 150 GP which aren't that hard to get).
The cutscenes are pretty low-rent, giving a cop-out every chance they get, like when the ship is supposed to fall down the waterfall in the third movie, all the game does is tilt the camera and put a bunch of mist there while there's a close-up on the ship and you can't see what's going on. Not to mention that the only people on any of the ships are Jack, Will, Barbossa, Elisabeth and Gibbs. Why they couldn't put any of the characters you see on the street onto the ships just to populate them is beyond me, but it looks ridiculous that about five characters are manning entire ships by themselves. Besides that, the cutscenes make no sense at all, trying so hard to condense the movies' many twists and turns into something easier to understand, which end up just being laughable and idiotic. For anyone who's planning on playing the game, take special note of the part where they vote and try to tell what's going on, imagining that you didn't see the movie. The parts of the game which try to explain what happened that the movie doesn't explain, like how Jack escapes from that prison in the second movie, don't tie into the movie very well because they don't connect. In the second movie, the coffin is closed with a bird on top. In the game, Jack's dad kicks him into an open coffin. It doesn't make any sense and only distances the game from the movie. And is that a Sao Feng ship popping out of the water like the Flying Dutchman near the end of the game? Please.
All in all, this game is worth renting if you love the movies AND want a fairly easy extra 1000 Gamerscore. But if you only like the movies, then don't even play it because you won't really enjoy it. This is also part of the reason why nobody should get it on PS3 because you won't get any achievements, and trophies probably won't be compatible with the game when they are released for Home later this year. Be warned though, if you want the whole 1000, be prepared to spend about an hour and a half exploiting an "infinite enemies" part of the game on Port Royal in order to collect 100 souls from shrunken heads you collect. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this game. It really makes you feel like you're in the movies, and it's fun to spot the nods to the movies (like the statue in front of the Blacksmith's where Jack hides behind in the first movie). Really though, I love the movies, but I'd NEVER buy this game, especially because it can be beaten in about 8 hours. Please, please save your money for the dearth of upcoming summer blockbuster games which are so much more worthy of your $60 than this.