Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines

It has all the essential ingredients of a great Assassin's Creed game bar the depth. [Christmas 2009, p.79]

Feels solid and assured. [Christmas 2009, p.119]

Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines is not so long and not so deep than the first title in the series, but it's still a decent way to play with Altair in a PSP system.

Great location, good gameplay and very interesting story. Assassin's Creed Bloodlines achieves the goal of reproducing console's style into the PSP. Good visuals, enhanced combat system and new money-system could be what the entire saga needed in order to evolve. Bad A.I. influences some fighting sessions, and the too repetitive mission can slow down the pace. Every PSP owner should at least try this fairly good title.

The game certainly has its problems, but they are generally overwhelmed in the face of great technical prowess, the big open-world, and impressive fluidity of gameplay. We only wish it was a bit longer, because the storyline will only take about five hours to get through.

Fans will love it. [Issue#187, p.79]

Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines has its flaws and should’ve received some tweaking here and there. Still, the game should not be underestimated. Storyline pulls you in, the open world invites you for many hours of gameplay and the side missions keep the whole interesting. Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines has laid out the basis for future Assassin’s Creed games on Sony’s handheld, with the addition of a few improvements.

Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines is in many ways the fulfillment of a dream: a portable version of Assassin's Creed that loses as little as possible in terms of graphics and freedom of movement. The result is a product of good quality, a little short (the total length would be around six to seven hours) and plagued by some problems about the controls and the camera.

Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines has all the makings for a great continuation of Altair's story, but it's fraught with presentation and gameplay problems that keep it from becoming a truly fantastic experience.

Ultimately, though, Bloodlines is held back by the limitations of the PSP format. [Jan 2010, p.82]

Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines is a good title that rides nicely on its predecessor's coat tails, but is let down by a lack of polish and evolution.

Three dimensional free running cannot be successful without camera control and the combat is one dimensional. The developers did the best they could within the confines of a game design that for now, can only properly work on the big screen.

Even though the storyline is quite interesting, giving you once more the chance to be the assassin as Altair, Assassin's Creed 2: Bloodlines suffers from some technical glitches that inevitably hinder the overall game experience.

The PlayStation 3 Assassin’s Creed’s are really good games, but this PSP version is fun yet it has too many issues to name it a good game. The gameplay is repetitive, the AI is very bad and the camera is really frustrating. If you were thinking this was a good game, than it’s a great disappointment. If you like the franchise and want to try this one, you get a nice game, not more, not less.

Even though it's a bit rough (bad A.I., the same repetitive mission grind of AC, the out-of-character boss battles, the approximately five-hour length), Bloodlines is saved by its generally solid adherence to the Assassin's Creed formula. Using the hidden blade to brutally counter some Templar makes up for silly boss fights and lame levels -- plus I get also some decent swords for Ezio's villa.

Ubisoft has made an effort to create a great portable adaptation of its most popular series, however this hasn't been reflected in the final result.

Sadly, that gameplay doesn't hold up for very long. Combat is too simplistic, and the unintelligent AI governing your enemies doesn't help. [Jan 2010, p.91]

Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines isn’t a great game. There are better platformers on the handheld, like Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters, and there are better action games to choose from, like God of War: Chains of Olympus. Bloodlines combines aspects of both of those games into something a little less impressive and coherent, but somehow still entertaining.

After 2 showed us what Assassin's should be like, Bloodlines feels like a step backwards. [Jan 2010, p.94]

Had developer Griptonite expanded the scope of the city and cleaned up the guard A.I., Bloodlines would've been on the same level as previous Assassin's Creed games. As it stands, it's merely a side chapter instead of a main attraction.

There’s a lot to like about Assassin’s Creed on PSP, provided you’re tolerant of its heavy flaws, and we love that you can connect it to your PS3 and unlock new weapons in Assassin’s Creed 2 – we just wish the developers had looked more to the future rather than the past when creating it.

About as good as I could imagine a game in the series being on the PSP, but that doesn't automatically make it an excellent game. Control issues to do with the use of a manual camera, the PSP's lack of horsepower and a series of missions that focus almost entirely on killing make this an Assassin's Creed game that lacks the quality seen in the console games.

Despite some obvious talent on the part of Griptonite Games, Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines smacks a little too much of an unloved, unwanted by-product birthed from the success of the franchise.

Bloodlines is a brave attempt at an open 3D world which, while visually breathtaking, is let down by repetitive gameplay and awkward camera controls.

Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines, despite the many interesting aspects, has some gameplay problems, which is not exactly smooth and is quite repetitive and monotonous after a while.

A shade too workmanlike in most areas. [Feb 2010, p.75]

The game keeps with the spirit of the original Assassin’s Creed, but fails to comply with the letter. Its technical flaws outweigh the artistic merits.

Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines not only fails to live up to the high standards set by its console brethren, it also fails to deliver an experience worthy of your time and money. If you own a 360 or a PS3, and are looking for a worthy successor to Assassin's Creed, pass on this and pick up the proper sequel.

Bloodlines offers a few good moments, but it fails to capture the joy of its console brethren.

It's a good attempt to create a portable Assassin's Creed, but it has many gameplay flaws: not enough depth, it's repetitive and extremely simple. Also, visually it has several ups, but even more downs, so overall it's just fine. We hope to see improvements in future entries on this series on the PSP, as this game shows us that there is potential for a good handheld iteration.

As an obvious rush job, Bloodlines is perhaps the only big PSP game of this year that fails to be at least a good game.

Generic at best, Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines is a great example of what can be done on the PSP visually, but should in no way be considered an example of great gameplay.

Fans will like this game and dilettantes would do well to stay away, though really there's not enough here for anyone other than the hardest of the hardcore, dying to get their knife-to-the-jugular fix after blowing through Assassin's Creed II.

You just can't help but feel that the project was too ambitious for its own good. Much of Bloodlines works just as well as it did with the original Assassin's Creed, but a number of strange design choices certainly hinder the game as a whole.

Platform game fans would be better served by Jak & Daxter, while action game fans can go back to God of War. Bloodlines isn't a terrible or frustrating game, but it's as unnecessary as all those chickens.

The limitations of the PSP and a wrong-headed emphasis on combat ruin an otherwise promising spin-off.