The Bourne Conspiracy Review

Gamers finally enter the world of Jason Bourne, could it be better than the films?

Robert Ludlum's best-selling spy novels and blockbuster film adaptations have thrilled millions. Now become Ludlum's most famous spy Jason Bourne in Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy, going deeper than ever into his world of espionage and conspiracy. A signature Jason Bourne video game experience is born in Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy, an original title fusing the viscous tension and depth of the novels with the aggressive style and frenetic action of the films.

Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy Features:


Become Jason Bourne: Play as a 30 million dollar weapon on the loose, in Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy, action-packed with original missions and sequences inspired by The Bourne Identity.


Go deeper into the Bourne mythos than ever before: Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy lets players experience Bourne as both ruthless agent and wanted assassin on the run from his own agency.


Move from firefights to fistfights: Play sequences that seamlessly blend shooting with hand-to-hand combat akin to The Bourne Conspiracy movie.


Employ signature Bourne techniques: Weaponize, improvise, always survive - pull off heart-pounding escapes, memorable fight moves, acrobatic gun play, and devastating takedowns in Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy!

The Bourne films have been widely popular, I admit I was late getting into the trilogy. Infact, I only saw it a few months ago with the complete collection on the now doomed HD-DVD format. There was just something fresh and brilliant about each film. The Bourne Conspiracy takes the most memorable scenes from the films and puts the control in your hands, it also lets you play out missions that we didn’t see all of and others we never saw at all, as Bourne recovers his memory.

The game is essentially split up into 3 game types: Fighting, Shooting and Driving. It handles like a third-person shooter for the most part, but get close to an enemy and you’ll enter combat mode, which is probably the most fun that the game offers. It’s a simple case of button-bashing and blocking, but you build up a takedown meter during the fight that will definitely help you with your enemies, during which Bourne will use anything from the proverbial kitchen sink to a book in order to down his foe. You may feel that using the takedown meter lowers the difficulty, but it can seriously turn the tide of any fight. On the other hand, the harder enemies can also do their own takedown moves but you can block these by tapping the right button prompt on screen.

The Bourne Conspiracy is full of Quick Time Events. It seems that a lot of games are doing this now, Resident Evil 4 perfected it while Tomb Raider Legend/Anniversary did a fair job with it. Bourne Conspiracy however does tend to rely on it more than you’d hope, it seems that you always have to keep your eyes peeled to press a button. Just timing it wrong or late will result in instant death, but luckily there are checkpoints all over the place, so you won’t have to go far to try it again. Shooting is a mixed bag it seems, it too uses a takedown meter which will wipe out upto 3 enemies at a time, depending how far your meter is full. The main problem with shooting seems to be with aiming, it just doesn’t feel all that strong and the lack of a auto-lock hurts it overall, you’ll end up relying too much on the takedown meter as a result.

As you go through each stage, you’ll need to keep your eyes out for collectable passports, which will unlock “Accomplishments” in the PS3 version, I’m not sure if the 360 achievements are the same but it does seem a bit of a cop-out. I didn’t notice any Trophy support, but it would seem to make sense if they did what with the way the Accomplishments are set out. Another power you can use through third-person is a senses vision, it displays enemies a lot clearer and on the mini-map, it also gives a better idea of where to go, even if the game is completely linear. It does seem rather useless though, it’s not like it contributes a great deal in combat or shooting, it just helps identify snipers and objectives a bit clearer.

Driving is perhaps the game’s weakest point, it reminds me a bit of the driving sections in Bond: Agent Under Fire, just minus the gadgets. It too relies on QTE’s far too much, the control can be a bit stiff at times and crash detection is incredibly unrealistic. It wouldn’t be so bad if the sections weren’t long, but they do tend to drag on longer than they should. If you look at the actual chase sequences in the films you’ll see that it shouldn’t be nearly as long as it is in the game.

Graphically, Bourne Conspiracy is fairly good. You may come across a few ugly character models and textures but the overall look is hardly disappointing, although the driving sections do look pretty bad. The PS3 version does support DualShock 3, but the results aren’t that great as I’d hoped, the response is fairly weak in comparison with the demo of the 360 version that I played. It would have been nice to see an actual cameo from MATTTT DAMMMONN, but it was uncertain if he would be doing anymore at the time of production, so it’s fairly understandable.

The voice-acting isn’t too bad, but it’s hardly memorable either. It does tend to stick to the script for the parts from the films, which is a good thing. We don’t want it changing too much, even if the flashback sequences aren’t scripted nearly as good. The soundtrack is good enough and fits the feel of the game, but you’d hope for a bit more in the audio department.

The Verdict 7/10

The Bourne Conspiracy can be a fun and enjoyable game, but relies too much on QTE’s and fight sequences. Sure they are fun for a while, but the overuse reduces it dramatically and it becomes increasingly repetitive. You will enjoy it for a while, but patience will wear thin quickly.

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