Rented The Bourne Conspiracy this week. As a huge Bourne fan, I eagerly checked out the demo last month and was quite impressed. The game follows the same formula as the demo - lots of quicktime events, lots of running, shooting, and lots and lots of fighting. Lots of fighting. And punching.

It’s a good job the fighting is done well. It’s very enjoyable, as is the shooting. Generally the game keeps up the action throughout - which is good, because it’s disappointingly short.

The game is based upon the Bourne Identity film - something I was disappointed at, instead expecting to get a compendium of all 3 films - more on that later.

Watching the film is a must - because the game leaves out a heck of a lot of plot which would need to be filled in. And the plot it does cover, it bends and skews to be more game-like, which is fair enough. But the mix of close-to-film content and cutscenes mixed with nothing-like-the-film missions is a bit annoying.

Many of the levels consist of “extra” stuff - flashbacks, mainly, to Bourne’s previous assassinations not covered in the film(s).

And yeah, overall it’s fun. Sometimes it gets frustrating and difficult, while other times feel piss easy.

The graphics are awesome. The UE3 engine hasn’t looked this good with such realistic characters. They just look phenomenal, and the high resolution textures are amazing to look at. However, in between missions the game switches to pre-rendered cutscenes, and within these cutscenes the models look terrible, completely unrealistic and almost like they’re aliens from outer space. It’s jarring and horrid - making cutscenes out of engine is so last decade.

The weapons, too, are unrealistic and don’t match the films. The limited range of weapons combined with the jetsetting nature of the missions makes them seem lazy and pointless. Jumping all over the world and through flashbacks only to find every enemy uses the same pistols, assault rifles, and shotguns is just… ehhh.

Onto the ending. If you’ve read my previous post about Alone in the Dark, you’ll know it’s got a bad ending. But Bourne’s is worse. One second you’re at the ending of Identity, raring to move onto Supremacy, and the next you’re fighting a boss fight which never happened in the films, and which breaks most of the continuity of Supremacy. And upon beating him, credits suddenly roll. There is no climactic boss fight - it certainly doesn’t feel like one. It’s almost as if the action just… runs out of steam. It smacks of laziness by the developers for what could be a very enjoyable game.