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PSP Tenchu screens and release date sneak out

Tenchu: Time of the Assassins limbering up for a June release in Europe

PSP Tenchu screens and release date sneak out

Sega Europe has at last announced a release date – June 23rd – for Tenchu: Time of the Assassins, the PSP incarnation of the long-running console series.

The game is already out in Japan, but European details have taken a while to firm up (indeed, there's still no news on the North American release).

Tenchu is basically a sneak-'em-up in ninja clothing. If you imagine the typical daily life of a ninja – wake up in secret sleeping spot on rooftop with cat-like alertness, choose which shade of black to wear from wardrobe of identical outfits, creep along some walls and avoid stepping on the cracks in the pavement before slitting someone's throat open – you're pretty close to getting the Tenchu vibe.

Happily, Tenchu: Time of the Assassins features the same complex 3D worlds to creep about in that has made the TV console versions so appealing, plus there's a few new moves thrown into the mix.

In particular, everything in the game can be killed with a sufficiently sneaky 'stealth kill' – even the end-of-level bosses. So there's now no requirement to, say, carefully sneak and snuff your way through a boss' minions, only to resort to shooting 2,000 arrows into his head like some demented Rambo just to complete the level.

Fans of the series will be pleased to rediscover all the top Tenchu characters present and correct, including Rikimaru, Ayame, Rin, and Tesshu, each with their own story and individual levels levels to play through.

There's also 'free mission' mode featuring some 50 independent missions to beat, and a mission editor – an idea resurrected from an older PlayStation Tenchu game – that enables you to create your own missions.

Where's the fun in knowing what's around the corner, you might ask? Well, the cooperative and head-to-head local multiplayer mode also enables you to swap missions with your friends. Can you outwit their ninja skillz?

This first Tenchu handheld title (and much-needed PSP stealth title too, for that matter) has been developed by top Japanese studio FromSoftware, so we're keen to get our hands on it (or around its neck) before too long

Click "Track It!" above to hear when we do.