Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is a third-person action game currently scheduled for release alongside the movie of the same name next month. The game will be based on both the upcoming movie and on last year's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and it will feature all-new action sequences in addition to those that you'll recognize from the movies. We had an opportunity to spend a little time with a work-in-progress version of the Nintendo Wii game during a recent meeting with Disney Interactive, and we're pleased to report that the Wii Remote makes for a deadly weapon in the right hands.

　　Using the Wii Remote as a sword is quite intuitive.

　　Like other versions of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, the Wii game focuses primarily on flamboyant swordplay in interactive environments. This is a quite different game from that being released for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, though, not least because of the Nintendo console's unique controller. We were allowed to play through two sequences from the game: one that pitted us against numerous pirates inside a building, and another that saw us going one-on-one with an evil pirate captain on a street littered with interactive objects.

　　The enemies that we faced in the first level were quick to attack us in groups of three or four at a time, and if we hadn't discovered the very effective block button it's unlikely we would have lasted long. When we weren't using the Nunchuk's analog stick to move around or holding down one of its trigger buttons to block, we were swinging the Wii Remote like a sword and attempting to string together short combos that ended with a powerful thrust move. The combat was uncomplicated and intuitive, and when we moved to the next level and went up against the pirate captain, it also became quite deliberate and tactical.

　　Those boxes look about ready to be pushed onto the enemy.

　　One of the main differences between that fight and the brawl that we'd barely made it through previously was that the former didn't afford us the freedom to run around in a fully 3D environment. Rather, we started out on the left side of a lengthy, mostly 2D environment and had to push our enemy back—putting any interactive items that we found along the way to good use. Those items include barrels and boxes that we were able to knock over and handfuls of coins that caused him to stagger when we threw them at his face. All of these actions were performed using a single button, which got almost as much use as the "use item" button that we were using to consume health-replenishing chickens (retrieved from smashed crates and slain enemies) at a rate of knots.

　　It goes without saying that the Wii version of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End doesn't look nearly as detailed as its Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 counterparts. All of the key characters are instantly recognizable, though, and the game's design is so different that those of you with more than one console might find it impossible to opt for one over the other. We look forward to bringing you more information as soon as it becomes available.