	Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy
	Developer: High Moon Studios Publisher: Sierra Release Date: Out Now Players: 1	Words By:
Movie licensed games aren’t normally very good; they are rushed out to match the release date of the movie, they are often made on strict budgets with a small team, and generally they don’t really cut it. The Bourne Conspiracy hasn’t been tied down with limitations like that, so is this game the one to break the curse? A movie licensed videogame that actually matches the quality of the film and is a joy to play? Well... No, sadly it is not. You play as Jason Bourne, an assassin on the run is who being hunted down by the same people that employ him, the US government. They want you dead, and you need to deal with this whilst trying to work out who you are. This game and story is based around the first movie, and the game does feature certain scenes and sequences from the action flick. The game is typically played from a third person viewpoint, with you running around offices, airports, city streets, and docks ducking for cover and shooting bad guys with shotguns, assault rifles and the classic pistol. There is a map onscreen which lets you see the surrounding area, and you can use your “Bourne Instinct” button to view way-points, areas of interest and enemies ahead. Along with the shooting, there is also hand-to-hand combat which the game switches to seamlessly. Personally I found it incredibly frustrating that if an enemy is 10 metres away and the game forces me to go into combat mode when I was about to shoot them in the face! Once you are fighting, the camera moves to a side-on view and you have two attack buttons (light and hard), and block. When you get punched by an enemy, it builds up an adrenaline bar, and once that is full you can unleash the special attack which triggers a mini cutscene where Bourne finishes the enemy off in violent and interesting ways. These do look good and have an element of Hollywood flair about them, but after a while they get a little repetitive, and like the hand-to-hand combat in general, you are glad when it’s all over and can get back to shooting people again. Unfortunately the controls and gun combat aren’t handled particularly well either, and you’ll be asking yourself why it’s doing things that you thought were removed from games years ago. You have to press a button to pick an item up when you are standing on it, and simple things like putting your gun away is a slow process of having to pull and hold L2 whilst you wait for the slow animation to react to your command. The camera is very close behind Bourne, and especially whilst you have your gun out the view is very restricted and it’s difficult to move - it feels awkward and almost claustrophobic. Bourne’s problems don’t end there either, because using cover and aiming in general just feels clunky, and if you go back and play Gears of War or Uncharted you can see how it should work, and in the Bourne Conspiracy it simply doesn’t work very well. There are numerous areas in the game where it tells you to act stealthily and enter the area without being seen; this is virtually impossible, and as a fan and recent player of Metal Gear Solid 4 I found it very disappointing that you really cannot play the game with any level of Snake-style sneakiness. Enemies can see you through walls, buildings and from behind crates, and if you shoot them whilst they aren’t looking they often magically call for help and then it’s back to blasting away again, unless you get forced into combat by an enemy that’s 10 metres away... MGS, Splinter Cell and Assassins Creed all handle stealth aspects in games very successfully, this game tries to apply that feature to the game but doesn’t actually follow it through. They have put in a cover mode and they tell you to play quietly, but it never actually lets you play like this. It’s very restrictive and incredibly linear. On the plus side, the game looks decent, with nicely detailed and lit environments, some good choice set pieces from the movie (including the car chase, but the less said about that sequence the better), and the main character model looks good, even if it isn’t based on Matt Damon – apparently he didn’t want to get involved in the game. I really tried to like this game, and as a fan of the movies and this genre in particular I really wanted to like it, but it just felt too awkward, frustrating and too restrictive for me to get anything out of it. A real disappointment considering the opportunity they had. Another one for the movie-based game pile of mediocrity I am afraid.

Best Bits
- Set pieces from the movie
- Replaying the first movie in game form was interesting
- Characters and environments are nicely done

Worst Bits
- Frustrating gun and hand to hand combat
- Very restricted and repetitive gameplay
- Poorly implemented controls
- Weak driving sections


by: DC