The Bourne Conspiracy Demo Impressions
May 30th, 2008
Although I’ve never read any of Robert Ludlum’s original Bourne novels I have enjoyed all the Hollywood movies starring Matt Damon as the ex-secret agent Jason Bourne. The books and movies have been successful but is the video game adaptation going to continue the run? Well, you can decide how the game is going to fare by trying out the demo of The Bourne Conspiracy that’s available on both Xbox Live Marketplace (1.2GB) and PlayStation Network (1.65GB).
The demo provides the player with three levels to play through, two of which “Escape from the Embassy” and the “Paris Chase” I remember from the movies, but I’m assuming the level “Eliminate Divandelen” may have been taken from one of the novels. Firstly players will immediately notice that Matt Damon hasn’t authorised the use of his likeness for the main character. Those of us whom are more familiar with the movies will feel a little disappointed that a new “face” has had to be used to represent Jason Bourne, but on the whole this shouldn’t really matter as long as the game plays well.
The three levels on offer act to showcase the different gameplay styles available in the game, after all this is Jason Bourne we’re talking about so we expect close hand-to-hand combat, thrilling gun fights, and unbelievable car chases. The demo does it’s best to serve up a slice of each but is only partly successful in delivering an exhilarating experience.
Escaping from the embassy mainly involves melee combat with the player using both light and heavy attacks to string together combos. In addition when Bourne’s adrenalin meter is full the player can perform a “takedown” manoeuvre which is quite impressive to watch and varies depending on the surrounding environment. Watching Bourne slam an opponent into a desk, or rip a fire extinguisher from a wall to subsequently smash over someone’s head is quite entertaining and the developers have successfully managed to recreate that more “gritty” style of fighting that was prominent in the movies. However, there are only a limited number of combo’s you can produce using just two buttons and eventually the combat becomes a bit repetitive.
The second level finds you pursuing “Divandelen” through a subway system and eventually onto a transport plane for the final confrontation. Although most of the elements seem to be in place for firearms, such as a cover system and an “over the shoulder” camera view, it just doesn’t feel quite right. Bullets don’t seem like they’re having much of an impact on opponents, and in one unbelievable situation I emptied an entire clip from an assault rifle into an onrushing enemy and he didn’t even flinch. To compound the issues the free aim controls are also a bit unwieldy and it can be quite difficult to quickly line up a headshot without leaving yourself exposed for prolonged periods.
Undeniably the worst level of the three is the driving section in Paris. The car handling is shockingly bad, feeling more like a remote control car rather than a Mini, and the level design is pretty poor. The level basically requires you to just drive around the block avoiding the police a couple of times until your means of escape, a tunnel, is opened. Fortunately this tortuous level is quite brief and I was glad to see the end of it.
To navigate around levels you have to repeatedly use “Bourne Instinct”, when active this sense shows waymarks and objectives for a limited amount of time on the on-screen mini-map. However, the player doesn’t seem to be restricted to the number of times they can use this “instinct” and thus this action just feels a bit superfluous.
Interspaced throughout the game are “quick-time events” (QTE). Although the first few are quite enjoyable it soon becomes apparent that a heavy handed approach has been adopted and unfortunately they’re everywhere. Well placed QTE’s can be a great addition to an action game, but in this case they interrupt the game far too often, breaking up the flow of the game and just get in the way. I can put up with most of the QTE’s but relinquishing control to an event to show Bourne pulling a handbrake turn is taking things too far. In the end it starts to feel like you’re just guiding Bourne from one QTE to another, rather than them being, as they should be, an enhancement to the gaming experience. Worse still if you’re either too slow to react or press the wrong button it will mean a visit to the “game over” screen and a wait until the game reloads from the last checkpoint.
I can see what the developers are trying to achieve with The Bourne Conspiracy, it does go some way to recreating the cinematic feel and intensity of the movies but the demo is a mixed bag. There’s some interesting stuff in here, it looks fine, the presentation is great, and the source material is a boon, but it’s all drowned out by the overboard QTE, terrible car handling, and sloppy controls. Unless these areas improve I can’t really see this game being added to my “must have” list.
