October 15th, 2009 at 10:45 am - by Jim Lahey



Grand Theft Auto IV was released on the Xbox 360/PS3 and later a version was made on the DS and that game was great. Sadly I can’t say the same about the Assassin’s Creed : Altair's Chronicles. I was a big fan of the Assassin’s Creed game that came out on the Xbox 360/PS3 so I decided to check this one out. Sadly it didn’t compare.

First of all Assassin’s Creed : Altair's Chronicles is repetitive. It seems like you are doing the same exact thing in every level just in a different sequence. You do a lot of jumping, balancing on a beam, swinging and avoiding traps. Traps include rocks or blade on a rope that swing which you have to avoid by timing your jumps. Also there are spears that come out from the ground or the side of the wall that you would have to avoid or else you will die.

I noticed that there is not enough bad guys to fight in the game. I did play the game on Normal Mode so that may explain it though I rarely died because of enemy AI. The only times I ever died in the game was when I messed up on jumps cause some of them were real frustrating.

The combat was one of the more positive things about the game. It workes well on this DS game. It's really simple. You have a heavy attack and a weak attack. You can also block enemy attacks. What is really disappointing is the assassinations in this game. Assassinations are performed by pressing a button once you are near enough to the target and that is all. Not even a quick time sequence, or anything like that. Not at all satisfying.

I liked the two mini games that are required in almost every level. First is the Pickpocket mini game which requires you the drag a key through obstacles in a person’s pocket that you couldn’t touch or else you would fail and had to start over. The second mini game is interrogation. In this you have to hit the pressure points at just the right time. You must to repeat the process a few times and if you get most of them you will be successful.


The graphics for the most part are decent and it is a DS game so can’t expect to be wowed by the graphics. It definitely isn’t the best looking game. The camera only moves left and right causing a minor problem in a few instances. Thios would occur mostly when walking in the game and a building would block my view. This was worse when enemies were around. It didn’t happen too many times but when it did it was real annoying.

The story of the game is quite uninteresting. The story is about Altair searching for a Chalice. He goes from city to city to find its location, gets information on its whereabouts and assassinates different people. The Cities are the same ones that were seen in Assassin’s Creed like Jerusalem, Acre, and Damascus for example.

In conclusion I can’t recommend this game to anyone. Please pick up Assassin’s Creed, or just wait for Assassin’s Creed 2 instead.