Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines
Moving targets.
You can happily run up to a Templar and stab him to death in full view of a patrolling colleague further down the way, and then dive conspicuously into a haybale sitting next to the body, safe in the knowledge that the guard who saw you will draw his sword, look around in bewilderment straight at your hiding place, and then put his sword away and wander off. Guard reaction times aren't much better: at one point two Templars were stood facing each other having a chat, so I killed one and then had time to stand up again and kill the other before he thought to get his sword out.
There are other issues too. The camera is controlled by holding the left shoulder button and using the face buttons. This is restrictive anyway, because you can't really do it while doing anything else, but in a game that loves verticality it doesn't help not being able to look very far up or down. Tapping the button is meant to centre the camera, but I still found myself jumping the wrong way a lot on account of it, too.
Meanwhile, for all the fact that we're in an open world, each space is small and repetitive enough for the novelty to wear off within five minutes, and the original thrill of climbing up to viewpoints is somewhat negated by the lack of a view when you get there.
But the biggest problem is simply that it's all very boring. Despite being under constant threat, anyone who played either of the big Assassin's Creed games will find it tiringly easy to prance through these levels without much incident, probably completing it in around five hours, and there is little joy to be had on the way. Even if you haven't played the originals, I struggle to imagine anyone with motor function will get stuck on it for very long.
The main story thread is dull, the dialogue threadbare, the combat basic and repetitive, and the objectives unimaginative, however jumbled up they are compared to the original game's checklist approach. Without the many story-infused collectables of the second game, we are also back to platforming without a purpose, except now we're doing it in a much less detailed world.
You could argue that it doesn't make sense to compare Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines to its PC and console relatives, which it can't hope to replicate, and I would normally agree - except they are exactly what it is trying to replicate, with mediocre results. For the record though, platform game fans would be better served by Jak & Daxter, while action game fans can go back to God of War. Bloodlines isn't a terrible or frustrating game, but it's as unnecessary as all those chickens.