Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines

After the glowing reviews of its bigger brother, it was interesting to see how well Ubisoft could scale down the series for it's first foray onto the PSP. The result is something of a mixed bag with an impressive replication of the interactive landscapes boasted by the console versions let down by overly repetitive gameplay, focused almost entirely on combat.

In truth, Assassin's Creed Bloodlines is all bite and no bark. As you set off on your quest to assassinate the last remnants of the Templars, you are equipped with a long sword, a blade and throwing knives. However, with the missions so combat heavy and keeping a low profile so rarely necessary, the latter two are largely redundant. It's essentially kill one soldier, turn around, kill another, run forward a bit, kill the next one and repeat ad infinitum.

Don't get me wrong, it's fun decapitating enemies with an enormous sword and the variations in our assassin Altair's combat styles means there are a number of visually pleasing ways to do so, but it just gets a bit repetitive and, dare I say, tiresome after a while. There are a few occasions where you're asked to reach an informant without being spotted or kill a number of archers within a time limit, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

It's a shame really, as the world that has been created for Bloodlines' story to take place is absolutely stunning. Set in Cyprus, the landscape is graphically superb and is unexpectedly interactive. There seems to be a way to climb every building, plenty of nooks and crannies for the assassin to explore and huge ledges to assess your surroundings from before plummeting off into the safety of a haystack. On occasion, it's breathtaking.

While it's possible though to explore the city on a number of levels and scale huge buildings, it's often frustratingly difficult to do so. Controlling Altair can be difficult, particularly when trying to get hold of a ledge, and this isn't aided by the camera angle. This is dealt with using the left-trigger, which centres the camera, and can be rotated while the button is held down. This doesn't quite work though, and too often you find yourself hopelessly trying to swing the angle back around so that you can actually see what you're doing.

Assassin's Creed is not quite a seamless transition to the PSP. It may not be a particularly long game, nor one with varied gameplay and it's not without its issues, but it is enjoyable to play. Provided you like repeatedly decapitating soldiers with an enormous sword, of course.