‘Twas none other than the curse of the movie-based game, and it sank me faster than a galleon blasts a dinghy. The gameplay, graphics and replayability were there in spades, so a curse is the only way to explain what happened. It was the bugs, my sea-faring friends. The bugs. The glitches. The hiccups in video, audio and gameplay that came from the depths of programming hell to undermine an absolutely fantastic game. I have nothing but high marks for the gameplay, graphics and sound crew at Akella and Bethesda Softworks, but whoever "debugged" this game should be forced to walk the plank.

Pirates of the Caribbean cruises in the successful gameplay wake of Sea Dogs and most other role-playing games worth their sea salt: you begin the game with a basic character whom you build up using a preliminary number of skill points. The categories at your disposal are sufficiently piratey: cannons, accuracy, sailing, commerce, dueling and luck, to name a few. As you progress through the game, you gain experience points, which, once you level up, allow you to add to your category proficiency and thereby build your character’s attributes.

Much of the main story revolves around sailing from one island to the next to accomplish certain quests, be it transporting goods, escorting individuals or destroying a ship or fort. Early in the game, you’ll ally yourself with the English, as an English colony is where the main story of Pirates of the Caribbean begins. Naturally, your success in English missions grants you favor with the local governor, who in turn will pay you handsomely for your efforts and grant you all sorts of accolades. With his payments you can buy better ships, and with his accolades you’ll improve your reputation and find it easier to attract officers to your crew.

Once you’ve established your crew and have a nice ship, though, following the main path of the story is completely your decision. You see, as linear as the game’s main story might seem, you’re always able to delay a mission and sail the seas at your leisure, taking in the scenery or plundering ships that might pass in the night. In the early stages, you won’t want to pirate too much, because most of the ships on the seas, be they French, Spanish or Pirate, will outgun you. With a larger ship and crew, though, plundering soon becomes oh so tempting.

Since you’ll spend so much time at sea, it’s reassuring that the sailing mechanism in Pirates of the Caribbean is sheer genius, with sails that you can raise and lower depending upon your situation, and wind that actually has an impact on your velocity (tacking is recommended). You’ll also find yourself repeatedly facing nasty Caribbean storms, in which case you can maximize your XP by dropping your sails and steering in the direction the wind and sea are pulling you. As you’d expect, storms gradually eat away at your hull strength and crew count, so if you’ve not repaired your ship in a while or hired new crewmen, one storm can indeed send you to a watery grave.

Ship-to-ship combat is equally intense, with cannons that reload at varying rates depending upon your skill and projectiles that have varying effects on your enemy (batter his sails with knippels, decimate his crew with grapes, blast apart his hull with bombs or do general damage with cannonballs). Although the combat can be slow at times (these are old wooden sailing ships, after all), the anxiety of wondering whether you or your enemy will fire the next critical shot first ensures that your heart will keep pounding.

Land-based battles are no different, although they are very new to the "series." Where swordplay in Sea Dogs was only an issue when trying to commandeer an opposing ship, Pirates of the Caribbean introduces land-based sword combat in addition to the aboard-ship swordfights. Parrying with enemies on land is a matter of careful strategy, because going in aggressively will nine times out of 10 get you skewered like a pirate shish-kabob. Instead, you need to time your attacks deliberately, watching for lags in your enemies’ fighting patterns and blocking their advances with the left trigger. You also have a gun at your disposal, which is a nice new feature for large groups of enemies but can take a long time to reload and be a bit of a hindrance.

So with such strong role-playing elements and more action-packed gameplay than expected, where’s the downfall? Why the low overall score? Is it in the graphics? Hardly. Pirates of the Caribbean is one of the prettiest games on Xbox this year. The character models are solid and well animated, the environments are huge and lushly rendered, and the water is the most realistic I’ve seen this side of a bathtub. Walk along a cobblestone street, and you can see the bump-mapped divisions between stones. Saunter through an alley, and you can see beautifully rendered facades that look very much lived in. Switch to first-person mode on your ship, and your men will climb to the crow’s nest and open the sails so you can cruise toward the sunset-drenched horizon. If you thought the graphics in Morrowind were good, you will be absolutely awestruck with the detail in Pirates of the Caribbean.

No, the low score comes not from gameplay or graphics, but from the bugs. Sure, the swordfights can be frantic. Until your controls don’t respond. Yes, the ship-to-ship combat can be frenzied. Until the game freezes and forces you to restart your Xbox. You bet, the graphics are drop-dead gorgeous. Until you’re walking around admiring the scenery when the game suddenly resets and takes you back to the main menu. I’ve even heard reports of corrupt save files damaging all game saves on players’ Xboxes, although that never happened to me.

Some of these bugs, particularly the game-save issue, are similar to problems reported in the Xbox version of Morrowind, also published by Bethesda Softworks. It’s unfair to say Bethesda releases buggy games, because Pirates of the Caribbean was actually developed by Akella, and you can’t base a publisher’s reputation on one or two games. Nor is it fair to say RPGs of this grand a scale should be expected to have a glitch or two, because LucasArts’ Knights of the Old Republic is an incredibly detailed and deep game, and I haven’t found a major glitch yet.

Which brings me to the curse. Pirates of the Caribbean is an astounding game. Never have I felt closer to living on the seven seas than in Pirates of the Caribbean. By all accounts, this should be a serious contender for RPG of the Year. But the bugs tear this game apart like 10,000 knippel ripping through the sails of a Man of War. I honestly don’t know how most of these bugs got past the QA team. All I can figure is that the game was cursed by its movie tie-in. After all, movie-based games are supposed to falter, right? At least that’s what gaming tradition would have you believe.

As both a movie and a game, Pirates of the Caribbean is a standout title for summer 2003. Unfortunately, despite hitting its mark in just about every aspect, the game based on Disney’s famed ride is probably going to standout more for its buggy belly flop than its gorgeous gameplay and graphics. If you could handle the glitches in Morrowind, I encourage you to pick up Pirates of the Caribbean faster than you can say "Polly wanna cracker." If you’re a more casual gamer, though, I implore you to stay away from anything but gameplay videos and screenshots of Pirates of the Caribbean. At least those won’t crash your system.