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The Bourne Conspiracy is based less on the books – none of which I’ve read, and more on the films – the first two of which I’ve seen, although it concentrates on the first one.
2 days prior to waking up in the sea, Wombosi’s out to kill you and O’Connor has been sent to do the job, so you have to kill him before he does the same back. There’s a plot to the film itself, but here you’ll get a succession of fights and a bit of driving.
Aside from the fact that you won’t see Matt Damon’s likeness or hear his voice – Jeffrey Pierce performs the vocal duties, with Franka Potente reprising her role as Marie, while Alexander Conklin’s voice is brought to us, not by Chris Cooper, but by William Sadler, probably best known as Col. Stuart in Die Hard 2, and from Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey as Death!
Bourne Conspircy Clip 1: Fighting it out!
I also noted the following random observations:
- Running round the streets of Marseilles, France, this ain’t no GTA 4 as people won’t even notice you trying to run into them, and neither will most of the furniture.
- A bout of fisticuffs is just so damn repetitive as you’ll see from the first clip and the ‘B’ for doing a Takedown is pointed out so you know the tedium against that opponent need not continue. It’s annoying that as you lose energy, the edges of the screen start going red. Erm.. I know I’m losing energy. That’s why there’s a bar there telling me that. I don’t need any more visual clues. There are similarly too many times where it tells you how to fight while playing the game. Surely this would be best served by a brief tutorial beforehand? And in any event, there’s far too much button-mashing just to get to where you want to go.
Oh, and gun takedowns are also possible, but often the button to do this appears before you realise there’s someone to shoot at as that enemy is easily dealt with, it just feels like it’s trying to speed up the game even more. That said, pulling off a headshot that you can do without a takedown is fantastic.
- Even when you’ve got several baddies surrounding you, they’ll only fight one at a time. And why can’t I whip out my gun and shoot them? Why is a fight always so necessary?
Go to page 2 for more thoughts on the game.
Bourne Conspircy Clip 4: Watch out for the train!
- The second half of the first clip also shows that the coolest moments come only after a “Dragon’s Lair”-style situation of “press the right button at the right time”, which is rather frustrating that these can’t just happen along the way and more seamlessly like in John Woo’s Stranglehold. Note that baddies can perform takedowns on you at some points, which also requires the correct button press at the right time. In fact, there’s been times where I have still pressed the button *IN* time and it hasn’t been taken into account(!)
- And why is it when a baddie holding an implement such as an iron bar, and he drops it when he dies, this thing can’t be picked up for further use? More often than not, guns can!
- Bourne Instinct is something that reveals objective markers and enemies on the radar, as well as other points of interest. The downside is that this takes up some of your adrenaline, not that you seem to notice any problems so it’s safe to use it whenever you need to.
Bourne Conspircy Clip 5: Fight with Castel
- There are also far too many checkpoints (auto-saved) so your chances of having to replay a long part of the game is curtailed, but then you wouldn’t really want to.
- It is nice the way you can hide behind things, come out briefly to aim and fire by pressing the left trigger, and then releasing it to go back down, but the gun aiming itself leaves a lot to be desired. It needs a targeting system.
- There’s a bit of fun to be had with the gameplay but it’s not great and has been better in other games. The driving is rather rudimentary and took a while to get the hang of (as you’ll see from the footage), but doesn’t last too long in the overall game.
- For what it’s worth, I played all the way through to the end and the hardest fights are with Castel and Manheim, the last guy. I was going to put the clip up of Manheim but you see exactly the same thing with Castel in that respective environment (which is available to view in full – and it took me several attempts to finally get rid of him, one of which that’s not included here is that chance to stick that pen in his hand).
Bourne Conspircy Clip 7: The driving section
- Complete the game and you can unlock better weapons, concept art, music tracks, and passports allow you to replay boss battles (not that I’d really want to).
Overall? Well, the graphics are average, the sound is loud but okay, and everything else is mediocre. It’s a lot less than the sum of its parts but I stuck it out as it’s not a very long game at all and 2 or 3 big sessions, totalling around 12 hours, should see you complete it. However, I don’t think I’ll be going back to it any time soon, so if you can get a rental for a couple of days first then I’d give that a try before you buy, also for the fact that for those who like online play there’s none of that here.
In this review, I’ve uploaded a number of clips including the ones above, which are as follows:
- Bourne Conspiracy Clip 1: Fighting it out!
Bourne Conspiracy Clip 2: Man gets stuck in balcony
Bourne Conspiracy Clip 3: Well, shoot me then!
Bourne Conspiracy Clip 4: Watch out for the train!
Bourne Conspiracy Clip 5: Fighting with Castel
Bourne Conspiracy Clip 6: Joining the street life
Bourne Conspiracy Clip 7: The driving section
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Important info:
- Publisher: Vivendi Games
- Price: £49.99 (Xbox 360, PS3)
- HDTV options: 720p/1080i/1080p
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GRAPHICS SOUND GAMEPLAY ENJOYMENT |
6 7 6 6 |
| OVERALL | 6 |
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
| 1 | 2 |