Chapters

The Bourne Conspiracy is broken down into three chapters: Escape the Embassy, Eliminate Divandelen, and Paris Chase. Each of which offer a different gameplay experience from intense hand-to-hand combat to driving at neck breaking speeds through Paris.

In Escape the Embassy you are trapped in a U.S. Embassy and forced to fight your way out. You run from room to room, floor to floor dispatching foes with basic light attack heavy attack combos. If you successfully land a few combos you get your adrenaline meter up which allows for devastating finishing moves. Initiating these attacks get you to a cinematic perspective of Bourne beating his opponent with something in the environment in brutal fashion. The combat is broken up by short in-game cinematics and terrible Spider Man 3 style on screen button presses. Unlike God of War where these are appropriate and fit the flow of the game, they come with little warning and half second reaction times to execute. Failure results in game over or starting at your last check point.

Eliminate Divandelen puts you in a subway system chasing after a fugitive with armed guards in your way. Gunplay works well and the destructible cover is a nice addition. If you get too close to an enemy Bourne will automatically disarm him and go into hand-to-hand combat mode. After disposing of waves of armed goons it all leads up to a dirty knife fight in the back of a plane. After the fight you grab a parachute and escape just in the nick of time.

Paris Chase is just that, Bourne is placed in a Mini and chased through about half a block of Paris. It’s nice to see the developers included a bit of driving. The car handles like its on rails, perfectly taking corners at top speeds. Brakes are not needed but this part is the worst for those craptacular button press sequences (there are about five of them lined up in a row). The overall feel of this bit is that the game is extremely linear. Guiding you along with 30 second cut-scenes every three minutes or so. It makes the game feel a lot more like its movie counter part. Keep in mind these are early findings, so do not necessarily represent the final product of the game. Some if not all of these complaints may or may not be fixed with the release.

The Perfect Killer

The Bourne Conspiracy brings some new ideas to the table but execution is everything. We’ve seen a first glimpse of these ideas that I’m sure will be polished once the game ships. Flow is everything in a game and when the chips are falling right in place, this game can be a real blast. The interlocking cut scenes that glue everything together make this one feel like a great addition to the Bourne franchise. Get ready to be Bourne when the game ships this June.