the trip, I thought I might pick up something to help the trip go by faster. I understood that buying inside the airport usually meant higher prices, but I managed to find a reasonably priced PSP Assassin's Creed Bloodlines bundle, which came with the game, a Silver PSP-3000, a code redeemable for a DLC version of Angels and Demons, and a 2gb memory stick. Sure, I already had the PSP-1000 and I did know that the 3000's screens were crap at best, but I decided to get one anyhow seeing as that my launch unit's screen was fairly beaten up, scratched, and the fact that the audio only worked through the headphones as the speakers had found a way to stop working about 2 weeks before.

Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed isn't new to the handheld world, Altair's Chronicles was released to the Nintendo DS and iPhone earlier, however this was the first time that they would try putting the full free-roam style gameplay on a handheld. The game is certainly ambitious and the developers can't be blamed for the PSP's limiting hardware. The story is solid though. Unlike Assassin's Creed II, Bloodlines is a direct sequel to the first game and involves Maria, the Templar of whom Altair thinks is hot (well let's be honest, she is). He “takes” her “hostage” in order to defeat the rest of the templars of whom he's chased to the island of Cyprus.

This all said the story will be very confusing to people who haven't played the first game. If you don't already know who Desmond Miles is, what the Animus is, who Abstergo is, why you are assassinating Templars, or who Altair is, then don't even bother playing this version without either first reading about the first game or preferably, play and beat the first game.

Throughout the game you will be amazed at how amazing the graphics are. That was the first thing I noticed, for a split second, I thought I was looking at the first game on the 360, then for the next moments realized it looked more like a really good PS2 game, then settled down and claimed that it is the best looking PSP game ever (slightly beating out God of War). The sound effects are top notch but do get repetitive at points.

The graphics and sound are all very good but a game isn't built on those 2 alone, gameplay still makes up 80% of a game and that's where Bloodlines is short. While I do enjoy fast paced action games, Assassin's Creed was a game that I enjoyed because you could use stealth to your advantage to get the drop on the enemy. Combat is over-emphasized and I found that it became too much of a hack n slash game whereas AC1 and AC2 allowed you to drop into your zone, assassinate your target, then make your escape. While you can do that in Bloodlines, many of the missions have you killing ENTIRE GROUPS of people or multiple targets instead of just 1 person.

The combat is good however and feels fluid and not over-worked. While most of the game is completely action oriented, there are some good stealth missions in which you take down a single target without alerting any guards or raising suspicion. The stealth missions are few and far between, however, and they seem more out of place with the other missions.

The camera is controlled with the shoulder buttons: it is centered with the left shoulder and can be changed with the right button, this is nice however you have to choose between controlling the camera to see where to go next, and actually going there. Changing the camera requires you to be stopped and because of that, you'll be finding out that most of the time you won't be escaping and looking where you are going, as often times the default camera is blocked.

Assassin's Creed Bloodlines is a great idea that's hampered not by the developer's limitations but by the system's limitations. The fact that there is no right analog stick often times means that you can't change where the camera is (this goes for all games) and it's most missed during first person shooters, however Bloodlines is missing it just as much. The PSP system is a great platform for games like LittleBigPlanet, Wipeout, Midnight Club, and Madden however games like Assassin's Creed Bloodlines, while good on the system, aren't great. It should be picked up by Assassin's Creed fans that want to see the whole story, but passed up by casual gamers with no experience in the series.