Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines (PSP)

Bloodlines continues the story of Altair as he finishes his business with the Templars, following on from the events of the original Assassin's Creed. You need to be up to speed with the original story to appreciate this game, but if you are then there's a lot to like.

Visually, this game is remarkable for a handheld and is a good representation of the world conjoured by the series' debut. Altair moves fluidly, and the free-running translates surprisingly well to the PSP, with solid climbing mechanics for good measure. Scaling high points in the city districts still rewards you with an impressive vista of the surrounding area. Textures are good, but the environments are sparsely populated - the PSP only has so much to offer in this department, and no-one has yet managed to convincingly create a bustling world. It draws you in regardless, and you will occasionally find yourself doing little double-takes that you are playing this game on such a tiny machine.

The sound effects and music are high quality but a little repetitive. Nice to hear that Altair's voice carries a regional accent this time round, rather than being mystifyingly American.

The combat mechanics are a bit disappointing, feeling clunkier than in previous adventures. The satisfying counter-kills return, but executing them feels less precise and rhythmic than before. There is the usual array of weaponry, but the business of combat itself is found wanting. The stealth elements remain solid, and there is palpable tension as you try to sneak past a street of armoured Knights Templar to reach your quarry, or deliver an important item.

Altair is now upgradeable with coins earned for completing side-missions. For those who found the fetch-quests, mini-assassinations etc an irksome distraction, then you'll be glad to hear they are now largely non-essential. They do make a pleasing distraction and completing them rewards you with points that can be exchanged for extra health, throwing knives, higher critical hit ratios and so forth. There is also PS3 connectivity for those with AC2 and the appropriate hardware.

Technically, this game is an achievement - it is beautiful to look at, and sneaking your way through the holy land is still a blast. Sadly, the combat mechanics and repetitive sound design fail to live up to the same standard. Definitely worth playing, but you can't shake the feeling that it could have been something more.

Story: 4/5
Visuals: 5/5
Sounds: 3.5/5
Gameplay: 3.5/5

I wasn't expecting much from this game to be honest, but I found myself pleasantly surprised by how good it actually was. There are some major issues here, but overall, this is as solid a handheld Assassin's Creed title as I could ever imagine there being.

Story wise, you're once again Altair, playing as him after the end of the first game's events and cutting out all the 'present day' bits(With the exception of the menu designs for some reason), the game follows Altair's exploits in Cyprus as he continues to fight against the Templars while also trying to unravel the mysteries of the 'Apple of Eden' he acquired at the close of Assassin's Creed 1. The plot is pretty thin on the ground to be honest, but it serves it's purpose well enough. Sadly, Nolan North does not voice Altair in this game, but at least, as the other review has said, this game's voice actor gives him the correct regional accent at last.

The game plays much like the original, but with some of the enhancements from Assassin's Creed 2 added in(Such as money being used to buy upgrades, some minor moves and skills). It still has the irritatingly slow 'blend' stealth walking around nonsense in there, but it isn't as intrusive as in the original I found. Combat has been simplified for the PSP version as well, with the enemies being MUCH easier to kill(Most die after three hits, even if they block, so long, drawn out sword fights are a thing of the past), but the counter timing is a little harder to master this time out. The free running and climbing all work the same as the first game, HOWEVER... this game has one major flaw in the shape of it's camera. You'll be in familiar territory here if you've played 3D platformers on PSP before, but this game has the added annoyance of making you hold the L button and THEN use the face buttons to use the camera. It doesn't really work too well, and often gets in the way of the game being enjoyable, so I mostly just kept tapping L to centre the camera rather than try to adjust it constantly. Seemed to work for the most part.

The game looks fantastic, plays okay, and provides a pretty good 6-7 hours worth of fun that does tie in to the far better Assassin's Creed 2 in a fairly meaningful way. I'd recommend it, so long as you prepare yourself for a wrestling match with the camera.

Assassins creed : Bloodlines (AcB) is a game for the psp, designed to bridge the gap between the console releases 1 and 2. In the game you are Altair and are running around roughly a month after the events of AC1.

Altair has travelled to cyprus from the Holy land areas, as the last of the templars are meeting there to find the apple of eden. The historical relic which allows the beholder to control the minds of the people. It's Altair's task to track down the 5 templars on the island and assassinate them, before they find the apple and cause widespread damage to the world.
The story is very smooth and you are forever gaining information in similar ways to the console, interregation, stealing, eavesdropping are all ways of preparing yourself for the final challenge.

The game is set mainly in Cyprus , although you start in Acre castle learning the basics there and in the Animus. The assassinations take place in two of Cypruses cities, Krenia and Limasol.
These make for intresting level designs due to the big marketplaces , castles and docks situated inside of them. However they dont have the diversity of the consoles levels and so both feel pretty similar, not only that but the amount of loading screens which plague the city make it feel a lot less open and more like they are individual sub-levels, especially when every loading screen takes around 9 seconds.
The games area's do feel as though the developer is hitting copy and paste at some points, nearly all buildings are connected by wooden planks and have a hiding place. All the windows are set in the same way and every other building also has a ladder traversing between the different housing storeys. When climbing castles the stonework juts out and looks as though it has been glued on, not like it is a piece of the same stone structure.
Although , the palm trees , market stalls and people are designed well , albeit in a rather clunky style they dont have the variety they should. Apparently every 3rd person in Cyprus is an identical twin according to this game.
Just because it's on the PSP doesn't mean it has to have a second rate feel to the levels.

The gameplay is also a mix bag because of this, one of the most exciting things in the AC series is investigating all the areas of the map, the parkour side of the game is actually very fluid which surprised me. Ubisoft have passed over Altair's cat like balance and movement very well, it's just a shame the area he is running around in doesn't have a little more care.
The fighting mechanics of AC1 also appear in this game, unfortunatly thats not a great thing. The Knight's templar were meant to be the cream of the crop, the best fighters in the land.But like it's console counterpart they resemble an average man who has had the sword forced on them and pointed in Altairs direction , flailing with his weapon like a child. Big groups are easily despatched with swift , quick attacks and any attempts at blocking dont last long as they soon drop their guard.

Graphically the game is OK , Altairs robes flutter around his legs as he runs and small sparks fly off colliding metal. The best way to describe the sorroundings would be that when you are far away they look really good, but as you get closer you can see it lacks that final polish that it unobtained in many titles. It leaves it with that typically portable, blocky and smudged design. It doesn't really ruin the game but it is noticable.

The sounds in the game all sound good but are repeated often, the sound of clashing swords and shouting soon become very similar and a little annoying.
Voice acting in the game is average for a title like this, it feels a bit clouded at some point and the voice of Altair is very different , this doesn't help continuity at all as it's a game to bridge the gap, it seems to miss out the part where Altair's spent his holidays in a place near india and picked up the accent.
The soundtrack in the game doesn't add much but slightly raises the atmosphere , again its quite repetitive but their is the option to turn it off.

Around 10 hours of gameplay, it also has connection with AC2 on the ps3, allowing you to get exclusive weapons.

To be honest the game is pretty generic, whilst it shows what can be done visually , it lacks that extra detail in almost all areas. The team obviously didn't pass on the feedback from AC1 and let the PSP versions make the same mistakes.