Play Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles (EU) Online

Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles was a 2008 Nintendo DS release from Gameloft, a handheld offshoot of the console series that arrived when developers were still figuring out how to translate big adventures onto the dual screens. It felt very much of its time, a pocket-sized experiment in bringing a larger world to a smaller device.

You control Altair through side-scrolling levels set in the Holy Land, moving screen by screen to uncover a plot involving a sacred artifact called the Chalice. The game mixes sword combat, platforming, and light puzzle-solving, with touch screen mini-games for lockpicking and pickpocketing. It can be a bit clunky and the difficulty spikes unexpectedly, but there's a real sense of accomplishment in navigating its compact, dense environments. It feels like a condensed, slightly rough but earnest attempt to capture the core of being an assassin on the go.