After attempting the first game, my experience with the franchise was not good. At all. However, when a PSP game came out, I decided to give it a second chance and well, I was happy I did. Bloodlines, despite its faults, is another good PSP game to add to the library despite what other reviews may think.
I had a good time playing the game, although the main story was pretty short, there are a few side quests and other things to do. To begin with, the game looks fantastic, it captured the world of the assassins nicely into handheld form, environments and animations are obviously not up to par with its console counterparts but solid for a handheld. The world does seem alive, at least for a handheld once again, there are people around walking and talking and some attempt at attention to detail. The voice acting is pretty average, Altair sounds quite different and other soldiers sound clips are pretty low quality, with that aside its obviously better than just text.
The gameplay is also similar to its console counterparts, moving across platforms is automated and combat is similar. A few problems I did encounter was with the environments, I got stuck on buildings a few times, the automated jumping is not very precise and a pain to change direction with. The combat is rather shallow as well, I have more of a problem with the system than execution, soldiers are still happy to stand around and wait for their ally to die before attacking. The start of the game is very easy as well, even when bosses block your attacks they take damage for no good reason. Still, assassinating with your hidden blade is still fun, throwing knives is possible as well, I think the game needed more variety in the combat. There are unlockable skills which are only available in the menu screen which is questionable, points are gained from kills and collecting medal which are used to upgrade things like damage and health, shallow upgrade system.
The story is nothing to think about, the didn’t manage to get me interested in the characters and the world like other games did, obviously some Assassins Creed fans will want some gaps filled but don’t expect any major surprises. One improvement over the first game is the missions although still repetitive, it doesn’t not involve investigations, its purely a stealth action game.
The Lowdown
7.6
Final Thoughts
how we score
Overall the game has major flaws and has fallen short of expectations but still the game was fun to play. I recommended a rent only as there is very little incentive to play the game after you beat the short main story. A good attempt at bringing the franchise to the PSP but has fallen short this time but still managed to deliver a good handheld experience.