The Bourne Conspiracy (PS3) – Review

I would love to be writing more about the Austin GDC that is quickly approaching, but all things have their time and place. Activision’s The Bourne Conspiracy is here and now.

Activision's tip on avoiding the draft

 The Good: Per my post about Bioshock, I played through this game as a Trainee (easy) and still found moments of solid challenge. What the fighting lacked in combos, it more than made up for in QTEs (Quick-time events). The QTEs truly resonated with me for this style of game because for the few hours it took me to play through the levels, I felt that I had the quick, decisive nature of Jason Bourne from the movies (not the books…dear Lord, not the books). In the middle of tapping the triangle and square buttons to deliver brutal punches and kicks, you have mere seconds to tap the correct button during a QTE to stave off an opponent’s vicious attack. If you fail, you don’t necessarily die (unless someone is shooting you), but you do suffer a hard knock to your health meter and in a fight with a boss, that health meter needs to last.

And. The boss fights = greatness. After the first two or three, you know what to expect, but they’re never over-the-top. Simply put, a man in a position that requires him to be better than the men below him is harder to beat than the men below him. Or maybe that wasn’t so simply put. Eh, figure it out.

Lastly, the movie-to-game adaptation is handled better than I’ve seen in most games like this. I’ve seen the movie. I love the movie. But the game flashes back to missions Jason ran before the incident on the boat left him for dead in the Mediterranean Sea. Thank you, Ludlum group, for allowing Activision some artistic license to create an entertaining back story and fresh scenarios that were unpredictable.

The Bad: Not a lot to say here other than the controls were a bit quirky. Okay, in all fairness, after my first hour of playing, I was tempted to put the game down due to control-induced frustration. When sprinting through gun fire, Jason Bourne – a $30 million perfect weapon – runs like Mike Myers’ Philip the Hyper-Hypo, run and jerked to a stop…into boxes, fences, cars or anything else that gets in his straight path. I was finally able to come to terms with it later when I realized the shooting was made a lot easier through the “Bourne Instinct” (aka Spidey Sense). Just take cover, pop up and shoot. If you want a headshot, move the crosshair up a hair.

Overall: Play it. With the slowly growing library of games for this console, it is definitely worth your time.