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    Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy

    Game » consists of 7 releases. Released Jun 03, 2008

    Become Jason Bourne as he tries to outrun government assassins and discover the secrets of his past.

    preachason's Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy (Xbox 360) review

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    the bum conspiracy

    I have much less good to say about the first game based on the wildly successful movie franchise based on the Robert Ludlum books, The Bourne Conspiracy. Phew.

    Basically, you play Bourne from the movie "The Bourne Identity," but you are not Matt Damon. Follow me on this one. The game follows the events of the movie with additional scenes/missions acting as flashbacks, as if Bourne remembers his previous life in flashes, and you play out the memories.

    It is not a bad convention, and would make for an interesting story and game if it weren't for a few major annoyances.

    First, it's short. Absurdedly short. I started this on a Tuesday and finished it Wednesday. And I work for a living. It was probably about 5-7 hours total gameplay, which is starting to be close to "standard" for action games, but with no multiplayer and no replayability, that's just unacceptable for a top license game that costs $60. I'm sure it's longer on higher difficulties, but only because you would die more. (Good thing I Gamefly'd it.)

    When you get into hand-to-hand, you are locked into one opponent at a time. And you can't get out until he's dead. It's fun to fight like Bourne, but there is a limited attack set, and it just devolves into a formulaic button-mashing until you fill an "adrenaline bar" and can do a "takedown", which basically is just a theatrical "find-the-closest-object-and-jam-it-in-their-throat" kind of move, which you don't control.

    Bottom line? It's kind of boring, in retrospect. I wanted more. I wanted to be more free in my combat moves. I wanted to control the "takedowns", and I wanted to be able to be more mobile in the fight structure and even, heck, pull out my pistol and execute someone once in a while.

    The last thing I'll mention is the context-buttons. This is the worst gaming convention ever, and should be done away with. During cutscenes and even mid-action at times, a context button pops up and requires you to vigilantly mash it in miliseconds or else the scene fails and you must restart at a checkpoint. There's no "Choose Your Own Adventure" aspect to this, allowing you to recover from mistakes, or choose one route over the other, it's essentially a movie that you can't really watch because your eyes are riveted on the bottom of the scene, waiting for the next button to appear.

    Stop this. Stop it! Stop it! This would be like watching Star Wars and then being required to push a button on your remote when Luke fires his torpedoes. If you failed to hit it in time, you would have to watch the entire trench scene again just to get back to that spot. Screw me.

    Other reviews for Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy (Xbox 360)

      Captures the essence of Jason Bourne well 0

      The Bourne Conspiracy is a relatively faithful rendering of its cinematic source in video game form through a combination of third-person shooter and beat-'em-up gameplay mechanics. The story traces the narrative of The Bourne Identity, and it's quite fun to relive some of the film's most thrilling moments. The feel of the movie itself is captured quite well with the aid of well-done, albeit short cinematics and an excellent, heart-pumping score.The game itself is pretty standard third-person sh...

      2 out of 2 found this review helpful.

      Overlooked action game 0

      Pros: Feels like the movies; great combat; presentation; quality Cons: Not much to do once the story has been completed; you need to like cut-scene events; driving level is a bit of a mess. The Bourne Conspiracy is a character action game, based on the book & film series and is probably one of the best tie-ins since GoldenEye on the N64. High Moon studios have created quality product with superb presentation and production values that really gives you the feeling of playing Jason Bourne. Rel...

      1 out of 1 found this review helpful.

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