Also Available On: N/A
Publisher: Ubisoft
Age Rating: 12+

Developer Ubisoft claims its aim was to help players to discover more about protagonist Altair and his history through this DS prequel to the acclaimed console version of Assassin's Creed.

Gone is the open-world exploration of the console game and, instead, players get a 3D world that closely resembles Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia series.

Traps, climbing walls and tackling the odd enemy using a, ahem, sword is the order of the day here, along with rooftop jumping and simple puzzle-solving such as pulling a few levers or relocating a box or two.

Narrative is seen through dialogue texts in a plot that wouldn’t be out of place in an Indiana Jones movie as you are asked to go searching for a mysterious chalice.

The game includes four Middle East cities, featuring mostly linear paths as you make your way from A to B in typical platform fashion. The odd niggle can let things down somewhat, such as being asked to leap to a platform out of the camera’s view. Worse still, sometimes the camera prevents you from seeing Altair himself, making occasional guesswork a real part of play.

Despite the rather unoriginal plot and the simplistic play, there’s still some elements of joy here. The visual eye candy is impressive, with detailed buildings, environments and characters. Altair himself, in fact, comes with some excellent animation as he leaps from buildings and scales walls.

Weaponry in the game does eventually become more varied than simply using the sword, as you are offered daggers and bombs, for example. However, as you can get through the game without ever changing weapon there’s little incentive to do so.

Combat has some irritating issues, from unresponsive controls to a positioning problem. In order to fight a boss, you have to move Altair to the correct position to attack. This proves cumbersome as you shuffle him around to find the spot and, if you fail to do so quickly, then the boss could cause you an untimely death.

A number of options in the game, like changing weapon, are done so using the touch screen. Tapping the screen, however, doesn’t always work and it can become frustrating. But worst of all is the use of touch screen in a series of pointless built-in mini-games such as asking you to scribble on-screen to uncover items carried in your enemy’s satchel.

Assassin’s Creed: Altair Chronicles, while not a poor game, offers little in the way of originality. It's fine for a night’s rental, but its combat and control issues, coupled with the fact it only takes around four hours to complete, mean it’s only worth buying if you’re really into the console game and you want to find out more its star.