The Bourne Conspiracy Review

Who doesn't like the Bourne series of films starring Matt Damon? When you mention the Bourne series everyone thinks Matt Damon, so why in the heck did he turn down the chance to be in the game? Your going to love this, apparently he turned down the role because of the violence in it, Yep that’s right he turned down the game because it was going to contain violence. The Bourne films that he starred in featured absolutely no violence at all in them, oh wait they did and that’s why people like the films as its not violence for the sake of violence its story driven violence that without it would make the films shit. Just like if your going to make a game of a film like the Bourne series and just have the lock picking and driving the car, Who the heck wants to just drive somewhere and pick a lock.



I was dreading playing this game after receiving a demo of the game in the post from Sierra along with a note saying this demo is not for review purposes, So don't review the game based on this. I made my mind up playing the demo that the game would be cack and not worth picking up to play. Well I don't know what they did between the demo and the final release but the game just seems so much better now than it did before. Heck I even enjoyed the game and I'm a miserable sod. The demo suffered from camera issues which have thankfully been improved, there are still some times that you will be annoyed by them, but its very rare now and as a result the game now feels a lot better for it.

One thing that I hated about the demo was the car driving level that sees you driving round the streets of Paris, it just seemed to be wedged in when it wasn't really needed. In the final version of the game I still don't like it, but the good news is that’s the only level in the game that sees you behind the wheel of the mini, and thankfully its pretty short as well.



So what is the game all about, the game is about Jason Bourne as you would expect, but rather than just following the films it also sees you taking up a couple more missions from his past just to pad the game out a bit more. One good thing is this isn't your usual game based on a movie dross, as it tends to lean towards the books, and as a result adds that bit more to the characters past.

The game starts off with you trying to kill another assassin called O'Conner who has been hired by the former African dictator Nykwana Wombosiafter after receiving a tip off that you are trying to assassinate him. So its with little surprise that you need to get your would be assassin before he gets you. There's just one problem he has his own men that are trying to stop you getting to him, so the chase is on through the streets of some town in France as you follow his trail to a back street then into a bar where you get to try your hand at some hand to hand combat.



The controls for hand to hand fighting are really simple to use, with X and Y being your attack buttons and A enabling you to block. So just three buttons then? Nope the B button gives you a special finishing move called a takedown that can see you using the objects around you to quickly defeat your enemy if you have enough adrenaline in your meter. (You get adrenaline by fighting and getting headshots with a weapon)That’s not all though, say you have 2 or 3 enemies around you and your adrenaline meter is full, a little tap of the B button starts a quick time event that will flash a button on the screen for you to press for each enemy, dispatching the lot of them in one go. Failure however will see you lose all the adrenaline you would have used to dispatch them.

The shooting in the games not to bad either with you also being able to get behind cover and pop up and shoot, one thing though is you can only see where your aiming when you aren't in cover so its not like Rainbow Six where you can aim a reticule before you pop out, its all down to guess work. One section later in the game will have you screaming at your TV because of it, but if you use the cover wisely and guess where your going to shoot before you pop from behind cover you wont really have any trouble. Again like in the hand-to-hand combat you can also use the adrenaline gauge to dispatch enemies with little fuss at all. The only difference is you will get a quick time event when dispatching a solo enemy when using the adrenaline shot.



One thing that I wasn't keen on was sometimes while fighting an enemy in hand to hand combat you would rarely get another enemy with a gun shooting you from distance, but you can just move backwards to fight round a corner so the bullets don't hit you. It is annoying none the less though and could have been fixed by the programmers so it doesn't happen before the game was actually released, like I said though its just a minor issue and a rare occurrence.

You also have something called the Bourne Instinct, which allows you to see things that are of interest to you, from guns and ammo crates, to enemies and passports. Why people have left passports stood up like birthday cards around the level is a bit strange, either way High Moon Studios put them in to collect for all the gamers that like to track everything in the game down. When you find them all on a level you unlock an extra which you can access from the start screen.



The game spans over 11 levels in total which will take you around 6-7 hours at a guess, which just seems to fit the game just right. (I played the game over 2 days so cant be exact sorry) So it was a nice surprise from the usual to short or to long that it bores you to tears annoyance that we sometimes see with games.

I would have to give the game a thumbs up though, its a good way to waste away a day or two, and worth a try at least. As game companies normally put that a demo may not match the finished article, this is certainly the case with this game. So if you have tried the demo and you have made your mind up about the game then that’s a shame, your missing out on a good game.

Rating Box Stolen from Console Heroes