Assassin's Creed DS details

By Tom Bramwell Published 11 January, 2008

Prequel promises more adventure.

Clever Internet men have hunted down box artwork for the upcoming Nintendo DS version of Assassin's Creed, subtitled Altair's Chronicles, and an examination of the wordses and pictures sheds some light on how it will all work.

Apparently it tells the story of what happens to Altair prior to the events in the console Xbox 360 and PS3 versions already on the market, but the shots and feature details also suggest that it will be trying to deliver something to fit the other game's sense of scale.

For a start, it's all done up in a 3D rendered world, with fancy-looking graphics that allow Altair to perform the sorts of acrobatic moves he does on the big-boy consoles, including sword-fighting, stealth assassinations and combo attacks, with plenty of weapons at his disposal.

The game will also draw on the stylus for use in interrogating informers and pickpocketing, although specific mechanisms are left somewhat to the imagination by the screenshot to which the caption declaring as much is appended.

These are of course things Altair got up to on the consoles, where he had to track down nine evildoers in the cities of Jerusalem, Acre and Damascus as his mentor Al Mualim pranced around his castle at Masyaf throwing pigeons out the window.

It was a largely enjoyable game that we felt was badly let down by lots of repetition and a pretty silly storyline, but it's worth pointing out that we still felt compelled to go back and play it again. (In fact, second time round I did absolutely all of the side missions - it wasn't worth it.) Check in with our 360/PS3 review if you somehow missed all the fuss.

Ubisoft reps weren't around to tell us when exactly Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles will be released, but nothing is true and everything is permitted so as soon as we hear back we'll let you know.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (19) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • alimokrane #1 4 years ago

    Sounds Lame if you ask me. They are starting the milking already ... NICE! :(
    Edited by 1 at 11/01/08 @ 17:39

  • DFawkes #2 4 years ago

    Not first! Seconds too late.

    Still sounds like a good game. I've not bought a DS game for ages.
    Edited by 1 at 11/01/08 @ 16:23

  • louyfitz #3 4 years ago

    @ DFawkes

    same here, might be the first one I've bought in over a year come to think of it

  • dudefella #4 4 years ago

    Oh Eurogamer...

    it's "Nothing is true, everything is permitted"

  • Brianstorm #5 4 years ago

    Surely the new advance wars is the next essential DS purchase... out this month!

  • Tim #6 4 years ago

    Obligatory: http://ww w.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/1...

  • redlander #7 4 years ago

    Tom you really do have an awfully good writing style.

  • Feanor #8 4 years ago

    Can'r wait to see this reviewed in EGM three months after its release. Fucking Ubisoft crybabies.

  • Raya #9 4 years ago

    oh no goa.com ads again!! Should be banned or made to have sound off as default - or a mute button that worked properly

  • NewbieZilla #10 4 years ago

    "oh no goa.com ads again!! Should be banned or made to have sound off as default - or a mute button that worked properly "

    Ha, yeah, I always close the tab if I hear some crappy music come on.

  • Mugwum Verified Operations Director, Eurogamer Network #11 4 years ago

    dudefella,

    "Oh Eurogamer...

    it's "Nothing is true, everything is permitted""

    It is. You're right. I've already resigned twice today though so I should probably move on to ritual disembowelment. Lovely that I screwed it up while trying to sound clever, too, particularly given that the point of the phrase was applying wisdom.

    Unless I've got that wrong too. dudefella - PM me, I am also now worried about my other life decisions.

  • dudefella #12 4 years ago

    Well for starters, why didn't you listen to your parents and become a banker? These vidja games are clouding your judgment.

    I am very pleased that you have corrected this heinous error, however. I guess I'll still come here. BUT THIS BETTER NOT HAPPEN AGAIN!

    edit: Oh and you should probably resign again, just to be on the safe side.
    Edited by 1 at 11/01/08 @ 18:53

  • lemonfist #13 4 years ago

    I was hoping for a new 2d platformer when I saw this...

  • BadBoyBonner #14 4 years ago

    "Altair could only fight one enemy at a time, but many times two or three would attack"

    Did I complete a different version? As I remember you could be encircled by many enemies but they only ever attack one at a time in true swashbuckling matinée style.

    Only time I was ever attacked by more than one character at a time would be from the archers that were firing from the background (if I hadn't already taken them out with the throwing knives).

    edit - clearly there should be an r in arches - unless of course the arches collapsed on me ;)
    Edited by 1 at 12/01/08 @ 20:16

  • Davemanz #15 4 years ago

    If the box mentions the "console versions", it's guaranteed to be a trashy cash-in. Too bad, too, as a big developer/publisher working on a well-known IP have a great opportunity to make good third-party DS games.

  • DanWhitehead #16 4 years ago

    I hope this version has a better way of increasing the difficulty than just clogging the streets with increasingly stupid amounts of beggars and drunks. I also hope it has more interesting game mechanisms than "sit on a bench and press a button".

  • Pac-man-ate-my-wife #17 4 years ago

    Hmmmm... surely the joy of the 3d versions were the ability with traverse a 3d world in anyway you saw fit. Not sure how well this will translate to 2d.

    6/10

  • Razorus #18 4 years ago

    I'm going to remain optimistic about this. The reason being that the screenshots remind me of Ninja Gaiden DS and since that looks awesome-o 3000 and the gameplay is fantastico-3000 then this might be pretty damn good.

  • Aria #19 4 years ago

    Sweet :)