Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy is a lot of fun to play and will keep you entertained if you like action third-person shooters.
By: Captain Maverick
Published: Jun 14, 2008
Updated: Feb 9, 2010
I have always been a big fan of Robert Ludlum’s spy stories about Jason Bourne. So much so that my son’s and I have spent many “guy’s nights” in front of the T.V. with a big bowl of popcorn watching the series and telling each other just how we would do it if we had been given the chance to play the role of Jason Bourne ourselves.
Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy gives gamers the ability to play the role of Jason Bourne and try your hands at living his life, but you may just find out it’s not quite as simple as you thought. The Bourne Conspiracy doesn’t just let you live the movie but takes it a little further.
In The Bourne Conspiracy you will start out before where the movie, The Bourne Identity starts out, where you will actually live the flashback and work the mission that leads Jason to where he is to assassinate an African Dictator, Wombosi. But seeing the dictator surrounded by children while he is asleep on the boat leads to Jason having second thoughts about this job. As Jason is deep in thought, one of Wombosi’s men shoots our hero in the back. This is where the movie picks up, on the fishing boat where the captain is removing a couple of bullets from Jason and something else…a strange cartridge that shines some laser words on the wall. But Jason is left with no memory and soon finds out that he is more dangerous to someone this way and also finds out that he is somebody’s target.
In the game, you now have the pleasure of handling Jason and working through missions that will lead him to his final outcome. But there is technically some major difficulties to overcome in the game, just as there are for Jason. For instance the combat system is really two combat systems; one for close quarters combat and one for fire fights.
Let’s start with the close quarters combat as you will use this the most. You will have one button for light attacks and one for heavy attacks and you will use these the most along with the blocking button. As you are successful with light and heavy attacks and mastering the combo moves, you will increase your adrenaline meter. This has three sections. Each section allows you to use the fourth button, (i.e. the “B” button on the Xbox 360) to perform a one button take-down maneuver for normal henchmen. So with these normal enemy, with all three meter slots filled, you can quickly dispatch 3 enemy.
But when you are fighting one of the stronger level bosses, you will find that you will have to fill the meter several times and then use the take-down over and over. But be careful, because the enemy bosses learn. If you use the same pattern over and over again, they will play to that pattern and use their own take-down on you. Additionally you will notice that Jason uses many objects in the environment available to him as weapons. It may be a computer on a desk or maybe the desk itself that he smashes the enemy’s head into for a killing blow. You will also notice a very nice destructible environment when in these fights. This can be very appealing. But remember that the environment can be your friend or your enemy and use it wisely.
In firearms combat, is of course very important to remember the proper use of cover and concealment. Remember that cover does not break up from gunfire when you hide behind it while concealment just hides you but will come apart under enemy gunfire and you will have to move fairly soon. This is true in The Bourne Conspiracy as well and those physics are handled very well. You are also able to aim and fire around your cover. There are two ways to do this. One is to hit the left trigger and it will target the closest threat and if you are able to get a shot on the target the reticule will highlight red and you can fire. It’s best to pop up and fire a double-tap and then return to cover and then repeat the sequence.
The other way is to use a tool that Jason has that is called the “Bourne Instinct”. This will kind of slow things down a little for a few seconds and you can target with the left trigger and get off an extra shot or so. This tool works great when driving the mini through heavy traffic as it would slow things down and let you react more quickly. But it does use some of the adrenaline meter when you use the “Bourne Instinct” and it does not always really do the greatest job of getting you right on target, but it helps.
The graphics and environments in The Bourne Conspiracy are excellent even though they were not able to use the images of the movie actors, it really didn’t matter. And the voice acting was very well done along with music and sound effects which kept me very involved in the game. The game will give most players about 10-12 hours of game play, a couple more if you really take your time or get killed a lot. But really for the most part, there is no multiplayer mode so replay ability is very limited. I don’t know too many who are going to go back and play it again except to master the higher difficulties.
Overall I have to say that Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy is a lot of fun to play and will keep you entertained if you like action third-person shooters. With great graphics and environments along with environmental destruction it makes for some fun. It really is linear in its gameplay, as the furniture and everything is arranged to take you in one direction and you can’t move it and there is no jumping, (I hate not being able to jump). Additionally I would have liked to have a little more control over the camera angles, maybe gone to first person shooter mode as the camera mode is a little too tight on Jason, but for the most part, the rest of the fun of the game makes up for the rest and you will likely not notice the camera glitches. You’ll be too busy kicking bad guy butts.
Score: 7.9 (out of 10)
Published by: Vivendi Games
Developed by: High Moon Studios
Genre: Third-Person Action Adventure
{slot15}Platforms Reviewed: Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3
Number of Players: 1
ESRB Rating: "T" for Teen for blood, mild language, use of alcohol and tobacco, and violence
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