Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Solid"

When you think of Bourne, you most likely think of impressive action sequences with both hand-to-hand fighting and shooting. Well, The Bourne Conspiracy has just that but not all of it is executed that well.

Visually, The Bourne Conspiracy is great. The character models and environments look fantastic. Cars are a weak point in the graphics but they shouldn't bother you too much. The animations are amazing. Bourne does some pretty cool moves in this game which just looks all the more impressive with the quality of the animations. Cutscenes also look great but that's what you come to expect in this day and age.

Gameplay is basically divided into fighting and shooting and a little bit of driving. Fighting is where the game separates itself from other action games. You fight using a mix of light and heavy attacks which builds up adrenaline. When you build up enough adrenaline, you're able to use takedowns. Fighting takedowns vary from where you are or what object you're beside. If you're beside a small table and you press the takedown button, you can expect your opponents head to be going through it within seconds. It's fun to experiment with different objects around your environment. If you have built up enough adrenaline and you are facing multiple opponents, you can take down all your enemies in one quick movement but you're going to have to be prepared for quick time event button prompting. The fighting system seems even better during a boss battle. There is usually a few things around the area to use a takedown on and a few unique takedowns such as stabbing a boss with a pen partway through the game.

Shooting is nowhere near as fun as fighting. The Bourne Conspiracy uses a cover system similar to the system used in Gears of War. Ofcourse it isn't done as well as Gears. Usually during a shootout in the game, you'll just want to get back to fighting. It's not that the shooting is horrible, it's not great either; it's just that the fighting is so fun. There are shooting takedowns like the ones you can use while fighting. They are basically done by pressing the takedown button and then a quick time event button to shoot your opponent. You don't use them for fun though like the fighting takedowns. They're used to get you out of a tight siuation. There is also one driving mission based on the Paris chase in The Bourne Identity. The controls aren't paticularly great for driving, but escaping cops through alleys and the quick time events that come along with it, create a fun level.

The sound in the game is anything special but I wouldn't really have anything negative to say about it either. Bullets, people hitting of walls, table, etc and pain sounds all sound decent. The voice acting is also fairly solid not that much is used. The music suits the game well and you may recognise some of it from the movies if you have seen them.

The game is based on the The Bourne Identity. The story isn't explained very well in the game. They most likely expected us to have seen the movie and be able to understand it without much explanation. Either way, it's a great story. You play as an agent called Jason Bourne. In one of his missions (the first 3 levels in the game) you infiltrate a boat to assassinate a man. Bourne decides not to kill him after seeing him with his kids and is shot of the boats. He is saved but he has forgotten who he is. As he goes about trying to find his identity, he is hunted by his former employers.

It's a solid game but it has some obvious flaws. Number one is the length. It's very short and you could get through it in around 6 hours. It has little to none replay value. There are passports you can collect in each level but there isn't much reason to go looking for them. Also, there is no multiplayer to add to the amount of time you play the game. It's also fairly easy. If you but it on hard mode or "assassin", it can prove quite a challenge as you can take very little damage before dying.

Overall, it's a fun game. The shortness and lack of replay value may make you want to rent it instead of buying it but I would still recommend The Bourne Conspiracy to anyone who enjoys action adventure games.