A decent addition considering some alterations are needed to suit the PSP's limited capabilities.
The events took place pretty much after Assassin's Creed as Altair discovered that the remaining templars are leaving for Cyprus. So he decides to attack their stronghold in Acre only to realise he's a bit too late for the party. Yet he did manage to capture Maria Thorpe – the only female templar for Assassin's Creed. And if that doesn't ring any bells, it's the one where Altair was flabbergasted stating 'what is this sorcery?!' when he discovers that he is a she.
The gameplay is essentially the same as its counterparts – that is, it's a free roaming action adventure where you need to climb specially marked viewpoints, scan the area for hotspots, and then follow your nose to your destination. However being a PSP, there's only one viewpoint per area as the memory capacity is not as large as its cousins. Also some features were taken away to suit the controls like 'eagle eye'.
Whilst your main goal is to assassinate high ranking templars, the overall combat still feels great as nothing's better than slamming your dagger into a victim's head. Yeah it probably sounds like I'm a sadist however it's very satisfying and the controls are extremely fluent. It also helps to have a decent tutorial and this game is no exception as it forms part of the adventure. Then again, all assassins' creed games are like that so it's good to carry on that tradition.
However the AIs are not the brightest bunch in the pack. Actually it's a lot easier than Assassin's Creed as combat near a body of water / on top of a building can never be simpler. All you need to do is push them to their death (yes no one can swim at all and obviously falling from a height can cause death...unless there's a bale of hay that only assassins can land on). So the point is there are other combat options than just swinging a sword.
There are also a garden variety of side missions for that little bit of rest and relaxation. To be exact, there are seven types being theft, interception (I hate those as the controls are quite difficult to perform the chase), assassination, delivery (time limit applies), interrogation (just hulk smash them silly), trailing and combat (basically three thugs ganging up on a civilian –kill all three to win). So there's a decent amount of side missions to break the ice.
And if you are in the mood for some exploration, you can collect Templar coins that dotted throughout the game as each sector has five silver coins and one gold coin to collect. Obviously the gold coin supposedly is harder to locate / obtain however all in all, they are not too difficult to find as the maps are quite small considering. And if you complete the side missions / kill soldiers in a variety of ways will earn you bronze coins. You can use these coins to unlock more features for Altair and you don't have to locate / complete all the side missions / combos to max out.
Whilst being a canon for the Assassin's Creed storyline, there is some slight confusion that doesn't seem to fit. The animus is displayed throughout the game – that is it forms part of your upgrades and synchronisation. Strangely though, Desmond is nowhere to be found and if you played Assassin Creed 2, Desmond has no idea about the relationship between Altair and Maria. And this forms the second confusion: Altair for some odd reason saves Maria on countless occasions even though Maria kicks him in the face a couple of times. Maybe Altair has a soft spot for her however what's done is done.
If there's a strong point to this game, it's the visuals. It's actually quite detailed for a PSP game as Altair moves fluently and the landscapes are quite detailed. Frame rates rarely stutter however there's a lot less civilians about. Thankfully though, they all do react however they spend most of their time just running away. And what almost made me fell of my chair is there's voice acting – not brilliant however decent enough as I was expecting a wall of text. Of course there's nothing wrong with that however it just threw me off guard. Also every important character is voice acted yet Altair does sound different; more Middle Eastern (which suits him better).
Considering Bloodlines forms part of the Assassin's Creed saga, this one ends Altair's trilogy. One of the highlights for Bloodlines was that Altair's personality changed as he's a lot wiser. Also after every memory sequence, you get to see Altair drafting his codex and thinking aloud about his thoughts on the Apple of Eden, humanity in general and others. And if you played Assassin's Creed 2, it's the very same codex that Ezio was searching for. However as mentioned before, Desmond, the key link of it all, was missing so it does feel a little out of place. Play it if you want to see the connection between Assassin's Creed one and two.