Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
During the past holiday season, Assassin's Creed for the PS3 and 360 proved to be one of the most polarizing titles of the year. Anything that could be pointed to as an issue by one group of gamers or journalists was at the same time identified as a positive by their peers. Now Ubisoft and Gameloft are bringing the series to the DS in the form of a prequel with Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles. Players will control Altair on a quest to recover a chalice that is an important object in determining the outcome in the crusades, as well as putting an end to it. The game is obviously heavily adapted to suit the DS hardware and play environment as well. So how does this iteration in the series fare? Keep reading.

What's Hot
For those that loved Altair's character and story in the first Assassin's Creed, Altair's Chronicles provides a less interrupted peek into things. Altair is still the same acrobatic, stealthy assassin that we've come to know, but his world has definitely been scaled back a bit to accommodate for the DS hardware. Gameloft did a pretty good job adapting the game to the DS; however, the scaling back that took place works well, for the most part. The game uses a 3D rendered environment, which allows for some neat interactive elements. Walkways will crumble, walls can tumble, and you can approach climbable objects from multiple angles. The texture work is also pretty solid, to compliment the 3D world.

There are some mini-games built into the game that you'll need to contend with that weren't entirely possible on the console versions. When you interrogate someone, there's an Elite Beat Agent type of challenge you need to pass. Pressure points on a body appear and you need to tap them with the right timing to get the subject to speak to you. For picking pockets, you need to drag the key across the touch screen while avoiding other objects in the poor victim's bag (think of the old board game Operation). Some may find the mini-games a little hokey, but we felt that they are actually a great way of putting touch elements into the game without outright forcing them.

What's Not
Even though the game is pretty nicely modeled in full 3D, there are some drawbacks to this decision as well. For starters, the game has a less than stellar framerate. Everything seems a little on the sluggish side, but for the most part the framerate doesn't drop any lower. Also, there are some polish issues. Often times it will take you three or four attempts to climb a ladder or ledge, because you pretty much have to approach things at the exact angle or you'll kind of bounce off.

A few other issues will nag at you throughout your experience. The checkpoint system seems inconsistent. Sometimes you'll die only to appear three checkpoints back, other times at the correct one. The issue isn't too bad, considering that there are tons of checkpoints throughout each level, but it can cause you to grit your teeth if you have to repeat a tricky jump or two due to the glitch.

Combat is pretty simplistic. Despite having an array of moves to draw from, you'll usually just hit the X button repeatedly as it works just as well as any of the fancy stuff. By the end of the game we kind of viewed combat as the time in between the more entertaining platforming segments.

The game is pretty short, and there's not a whole lot to experience beyond the main quest, so replay factor is an additional concern. Most people may want to view it as an additional episode to the already established storyline, since the portable version lacks all the optional paths and goals found in the console game.

Final Word
Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles has its share of issues, but in the end, it's actually a pretty good conversion; especially when you think of the scope of the console version having to be adapted to the DS hardware. It would have been nice to see the game offer a bit more in regards to length and replay factor, but for those that are hungry for more in Altair's back story, this game does the job adequately. A bit more polish and a bit more content could have pushed the game over the top, but as it stands now the game is average in most aspects.