The stealth genre is a strange one. The common ingredient of the 'hide and seek 'em up' is patience, be it waiting for an enemy to face away so you can rush him from behind, or sitting in foliage for hours watching guards patrol, waiting for that perfect moment when you can slip past unnoticed. Before 1997, games where stealth was the central play element were rarely heard of, even 1988's Airborne Ranger had missions involving all-out mayhem between sessions of ditch-crawling 'action'. Then, within the space of a year, we had Thief, Metal Gear Solid and Tenchu - closet stalkers and voyeurs finally had something to occupy their time, other than pointing their binoculars at the local lovelies preparing for bed.
When Tenchu debuted on PS1 in 1998 it was received with great enthusiasm. The enigmatic life of the Ninja is captivating, and this was the first time anyone had bothered to bring us a game that dealt with more than the chopsocky, sword play and star throwing of Shinobi or Yie Ar Kung-fu. After all, who doesn't dream of running around rooftops, sneaking up on feudal lords, silently slicing their throats and bathing in the shower of hot, foamy blood? With the aid of your grapple, you could zip over the heads of the unsuspecting enemy to gain higher ground from which to pounce, or take the coward's option and throw daggers at them from a distance. However, the game had more than a few technical snags, not least an unforgiving camera system that steadfastly refused to present the most appropriate angle when the shit hit the fan.
Tenchu: Time of the Assassins sees the return of the series' protagonists; Ayame, Rikimaru, Rin and Tesshu, always loyal servants to Lord Gohda. Each of the characters has slightly different skills and weaknesses and their own story mode, featuring a selection of missions interspersed with cheesy narrative befitting the genre perfectly. It's a shame that the dialogue is crippled thanks to its execution through pop-up speech bubbles that somehow only manage to contain eight words at any time, leaving you manically hitting the X button as you try to take in the unfolding story. Undoubtedly, you'll end up hitting 'Start' to skip the bloody lot. For those that just want to get straight into the game, they can opt for one of the 50 stand-alone missions or, if there's a friend about with their own copy of the game, multiplayer is available.
To anyone who has played Tenchu before, they'll be right at home with the usual pre-mission selection of weapons and equipment. As always, this is a little frustrating, as the mission brief is just a bit sketchy, so you never really know whether you're going to need a whole bunch of daggers to pick of enemies from afar, or the chameleon spell to help sneak past a gaggle of guards. When you're in the game, your awareness of other characters is once again indicated by the 'Presence' or Ki meter. As others get closer, the meter rises and if you're seen, changes to exclamation marks. If you're in plain sight, not crouching or hugging a wall, you'll be easily spotted from quite a distance. Take cover and you'll get away with a fairly close encounter - essential for those stealth kills - and we all know what stealth kills mean; points! On completion of each mission your performance is measured by kills against number of sightings.
Completing a mission completely unnoticed, using only stealth kills, will pull in big points, which means a good score - 'Assassin' at best. At worst, getting spotted and killing enemies in several drawn out 'parry, parry, strike' sessions and killing the odd innocent, will award you with a 'Thug' rating.
Viewed in third-person, as with all other Tenchu titles (excepting the DS' top-down view) the PSP's analogue nubbin is the primary mode of control, with the D-pad switching weapons and tools, the symbol buttons providing access to jumping, attacking, blocking and using weapons and the grapple. The shoulder buttons provide a means to crouch, lock-on, sneak and go into first-person view. Moving around takes a bit of getting used to, as the nubbin isn't the most friendly controller, especially over lengthy periods of play. Coupled with the use of the left shoulder button for sneaking, expect to be in for a some serious hand cramp.
