IGN Pirates: The Key of Dreams Review

Pirates -- and IGN is not referring to the excellent Sid Meier's Pirates series -- is apparently a franchise that Oxygen wants to extend into a multi-sku franchise: later this year Nintendo DS owners will be hitting the charted waters in Pirates on the High Seas, but as an early look at the design the developer produced a WiiWare version set in the game's universe: Pirates and the Key of Dreams. It's not a very good advertisement for things to come, unfortunately. This game is a little light on energy – even the voice actor recorded for the only pirate-themed voice sample seems a little bored – and the design is drawn out to boring levels in the single player. The multiplayer is promising but its flaws are too huge to ignore.