Game REVIEWS

unWIRED Rating:

Assassin’s Creed: Bloodline Review

System: Sony PSP/ PSP GO
Publisher: Ubisoft
Category: Action
Available Now

As a sequel to the original Assassin’s Creed, “Assassin’s Creed: Bloodline” continues the story where the original left off. To the people who have not played the original game yet, this game will start off really confusing. “Assassin’s Creed: Bloodline” refers to the previous game, “Assassin’s Creed”, in the first chapter. The chapters tell the story of Altair after Desmond was rescued from the labs and ends with an explanation on how Altair and Maria got together.

Like in the previous game, “Bloodline” deals with Altair, a member of a clan of assassins, who travels around and helps the cause through eliminating the Templar Knights. Altair wants to help the people rise up to the Templar Knights and take back the control that the country lost during the Third Crusade. After every boss fight, the player is brought back to the main screen. From there, they can view their progress from the familiar Animus heads up display. Animus is the machine introduced in the first game, which allow anyone to tap into their genetic memory, and relive their ancestor’s life. At the main screen, completed chapters will show up as light blue, while the undone chapters will be in a somewhat transparent black. Also, from the main screen, the players can purchase upgrades, which make one’s playing experience easier.

The storyline is very short and very bland. The game can probably be beaten in one sitting, only assuming that the player does not spend much time on side questing. As far as the story is concerned, it is a repeat of assassinate the given target, then escape safely. The game gets very repetitive to a point where trying to play it through in one sitting becomes nearly impossible. The control of the game is the same as the original Assassin’s Creed. The only change in this game is the Eagle Vision ability, which allowed Altair to distinguish between friends or foes. This is no longer available to Altair. Other than that, the game is exactly the same.

The game itself looks really nice. “Bloodlines” takes full advantage of what the PSP has to offer. The game offers full voice acting, although a lot of the times the voices would glitch, and skip words and/or phrase. This game is filled with bugs and glitches. Aside from the voice skipping, I personally ran into 2 more bugs that make playing the game that much more annoying: 1) My side quest contact disappeared from the screen after I failed the mission. Yet, when I went back to where the NPC was, I was still allowed to talk to it. 2) The game randomly black screened and there was no way for me to get out of it, other then resetting the game.

The game is not a bad play for fans of the first title, if anyone would like to know what happened to Altair after the events of the first game, this is the answer; other than that, the game really has nothing to offer for new players. It would probably be better for one to just try Assassin’s Creed 2 on one of the consoles before even considering this game.

** Written by Benson Chen