Jason Bourne has probably become one of the most recognizable spy characters in recent years, second only to James Bond. With the supposed end of his trilogy on the big screen, Sierra and High Moon Studios decided to team up and bring his adventures to the next-generation and give players the chance to become the 30-million dollar agent. With a heavy influence of quick-time events and a back and forth gameplay style of action, you might feel you are watching The Bourne Identity all over again. While we don’t get to see the charming Matt Damon here in the lead role, this Jason Bourne double is respectable and quite interesting. Does The Bourne Conspiracy live up to its movie counterparts and does it deliver the fast-paced action gameplay we know from the series?

Who Am I?

That’s the one question you’ll find yourself remembering over the course of the game, The Bourne Conspiracy starts you off in the beginnings of Jason Bourne’s existence. Developed under the continually licensed Unreal Engine 3 (think Gears of War gameplay), High Moon Studios decided it would be right to stick this title with quick-time events. These kinds of things are sometimes sketchy and usually a split opinion among experienced gamers; however, with the style of the gameplay and the action-movie feel that this game provides, it fits just right.

Jason Bourne is a man of many talents, and hand-to-hand combat is one of them. Using the moves of an extremely skilled assassin, Bourne runs into plenty of fisticuffs. Special moves, called Takedowns, help you greatly in these fights by making things move quicker and helping you move along in the mission. When you gain the specific limit of adrenaline you need, you’ll hear a specific sound that along with an image showing you a Takedown is available for use. You press the B button and the gameplay switches just for a moment into cinematic view. You can watch in its glory as you see Bourne use anything at his disposal to knock the sense out of his opponent. You might notice during fights that your opponents can use Takedowns as well. You have to listen for a sound and pay attention to the on-screen prompt so that you can easily block the oncoming Takedown or you’ll lose a bit of health from it. These Takedowns are certainly fun to watch, and even if you don’t have anything from the environment you can use, Bourne will simply throw some hard punches and kicks instead.

Takedowns also exist for gunplay. During many different parts of the game you’ll be dealing with the shoot-and-cover gameplay style that Gears of War so stylishly employed. The game itself is extremely linear although isn’t really a problem since it most sticks to its action-movie feel. There will be instances, however, that will get frustrating if you don’t strategically plan your kills. Enemies were known to become a bit gruesome when it came to taking down every last one of them. If you don’t watch your ammo, you could easily be killed and be forced to start the level over again. Enemies are fairly challenging for the most part depending on the difficulty level that you decided to play at.

An interesting feature within The Bourne Conspiracy lets you use Bourne Sense, or Bourne Instinct as the game calls it, by pressing the Y button. This will help you find key items during the missions and enemies in your location. During one section of the game you are tasked with escaping the city of Paris and driving as far away from the city as possible deep into the countryside. The driving section tasks you with some clunky controls. Right and left trigger buttons are used for both gas and brakes respectively. The steering is quite off here and the camera tries desperately to keep up. You’ll find yourself colliding with other cars quite a bit as you try to escape the police. Your health meter turns into a threat meter as it will determine how far away you lost the cops and you must keep that as low as possible until you are able to escape through the tunnel in one part of the level. Your Bourne Instinct becomes useful here, as when you activate it, you will slow down time and this helps you greatly in trying to doge oncoming cars and police cars as they try to ram you into submission. Driving is the one fault that this game brings in its gameplay and is certainly a downer.

You may also run into issues with the game’s camera, which can affect gameplay. During some of the many melee encounters during The Bourne Conspiracy, you may notice the camera adjusts itself to your current position and can cause problems with perspective. One thing that is recommended is that you don’t move yourself into wall corners and tight spaces as the camera will find it hard to adjust it and you could be seeing a bird’s eye view of your fight. Still, the issues with the camera in these specified circumstances can lead to confusion and frustration at times.

Graphics
The world of The Bourne Conspiracy is nicely constructed. Characters during cutscenes and in-game are very detailed, as they should be for this type of game. The game’s engine runs smoothly here and doesn’t seem to have many hiccups during load times. Cutscenes are more then you can ask for in an action game of this nature. Jason Bourne himself, while not Matt Damon, is certainly a respectable clone in his own right.

Everyone loves the Takedowns, and with destructible environments becoming a big part of the gameplay, Takedowns become that much sweeter making melee action that much more realistic. One more point that should be mentioned is that as you beat down your opponent you will notice that his face gets bruised just as much as yours, which is telling for a game of this caliber and others like it.

Sound

The Bourne Conspiracy features THX Dolby Surround Sound and it is clearly mastered and fine tuned. It sounds like you would hear it in the movies. Music transitions nicely to the ongoing events you are moving through. One interesting feature lies in the Extras menu; as you play through the game, you will continually unlock extras and one of these is music tracks you can listen to during the game. Boss fight themes and Bourne’s theme are all rounded out and fit in nicely.

Plasma Factor

It is probably obvious from this review that there is solely one thing that makes the game as fun as it is. Takedowns are fun and give a very satisfying kill rate. The quick-time events don’t slow things down a bit and actually provide a more satisfying experience, but Takedowns are where it’s at here and may be the deciding factor as far as whether The Bourne Conspiracy is worthy of a purchase. Fisticuffs are always fun, as long as you plan your combinations wisely. There is one incentive during the levels to get you to go back and collect passports that will eventually gain you an achievement after every level. The game unfortunately has no multiplayer, but it isn’t needed here.

Conclusion

The Bourne Conspiracy probably would’ve been more suited for a $49.99 price tag for its lack of content since it only contains a single player mode. With the nature of the title itself, being a movie-like adaptation, it certainly warrants it even more. If you can get this on discount, then it is highly recommended. Renting the game may make even more sense as the game takes only around 6-8 hours to complete, depending on your gaming experience of course. The extras aren’t enough to stretch out its welcome, so, rent first; then if you feel the need, you can make the plunge.