Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy Review

By Tom Bramwell Published 30 June, 2008

You're a malfunctioning 30-million-dollar weapon.

Version tested: Xbox 360

Being Jason Bourne may look glamorous, but in reality it's probably not. Yes, you get to bring down the silly old CIA using rusty old cars and biros and then go and live on a beach with Franka Potente, but you also have to remember numbers, sleep rough, wipe down hotel rooms and put up with headaches. We'd still rather own a Velcro patent or get a discount at Thresher. Fortunately High Moon Studios thought of that and so Bourne Conspiracy is about doing all the cool things in Robert Ludlum's books and the Matt Damon films, and in some respects it does them well.

There's the nucleus of a fun game in Bourne's hand-to-hand skills, for instance. You have two attack buttons, which allow you to perform a range of basic combos, and as long as you remember to block when the other guy hits back you can quickly build up "adrenaline" and do Bourne's signature takedowns: slick, violent finishing moves that smash goons into the wall and elbow them in the head as they bounce away, or crush their windpipes and crack their knees in one fluid motion.

The fighting snaps the dynamic camera to the side so you can see what's going on, but otherwise we're in third-person shooter territory, running around docks, embassies, yachts and airports ducking behind cover and shooting people with pistols, shotguns and assault rifles. Bourne's super-assassin intuition is replicated by a "Bourne Instinct" button that feeds waypoints to a mini-map and lights up enemies, helpfully guiding your gun-sight to them, although leaving you to adjust the aiming rather than locking on. Aiming is awkward and movement is ungainly, with too many controls to worry about on the first couple of levels, but you get into a tolerable rhythm.

The other major gameplay element is quick-time events, where you hit a face button as prompted on-screen during what's otherwise an in-game cut-scene. The way they're implemented is sensible - you're shown a button layout with the correct response highlighted, rather than just being shown the button on its own, and this makes it easier to react - and they improve a few sequences. One - a long-range rifle assassination in a university - is actually a high point in the game as a whole, as Bourne coolly guides his sights through the chaos on the ground, picking off bodyguards and moving targets as if he's that lanky sniper in the bell-tower out of Saving Private Ryan. All of this is seamlessly integrated with the other elements.

'Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy' Screenshot 1

The hand-to-hand fighting quickly gets boring once you've seen a few takedowns.

As we all know, there are three Bourne films at this point, but Conspiracy focuses on the first story, Identity, in which Jason Bourne has to work out who he is and kill off the people coming after him. To this end High Moon also recreates a lot of the key action sequences: escaping the US embassy in Zurich, the fight with another CIA assassin in a Paris apartment, the car chase, and so on. These are quite compact levels, rarely drawn out in the way that adaptations tend to be. The CG cut-scenes agree with Doug Liman's film direction and camera angles, and the wardrobe department and set designers, and even the music, although it's subtly different here.

The main difference is Bourne himself, because Matt Damon decided not to get involved, but where the game willingly goes its own way is in flashback levels, which dramatise the run-up to the botched assassination attempt on Nykwana Wombosi off the French coast that got Bourne into trouble in the first place, and show you a few of the CIA's other hits, like a war criminal who runs riot in a Swiss airport with an army of hooded terrorists.

These are a bit more hit-and-miss. They have their moments, usually when the developer's getting the most out of the Unreal Engine 3: fighting your way out of a burning distillery, for instance, and going hand-to-hand with military police on a rooftop as red sniper beams cut past you in the direction of the camera. When they're well-lit, the character models are muscular and convincing and the fight animations are superb. But for the most part these levels are meandering, ugly and overlong, and the linearity grates. The airport level is a contrived procession up and down escalators, through fenced off duty-free shops and food courts and down a subway before ending up on a cargo plane, and wherever you go you're treated to plenty of corridors, offices, kitchens, alleyways and locked doors, served up between inconsistently spaced automatic save checkpoints.

There's a bit of deviation from the above that's worth noting. The initial sprint through the US embassy when you're told not to kill anyone is quite frantic and arresting, and there's also the car chase, which makes good use of the Bourne Instinct to help you steer through packed intersections and panicked motorists in slow-motion, although the rest of the level falls flat thanks to rubbish handling, and canned dramatic detours down alleyways and through glass shop-fronts.

This sort of thing would be easier to tolerate if the fight-and-shoot gameplay was going anywhere, but it doesn't. You'll chuckle along to the first dozen or so hand-to-hand takedowns, but "weaponising" the environment - using fire extinguishers, pens and other props to pull off different takedowns - always amounts to the same thing with a slightly different animation, and there's no evolution of the core combinations, just less tolerance of mistakes and impatience. You'll come to resent the boss enemies' resilience and patterns, too - the inevitable production of a knife, and never taking damage when you block their attempted takedowns, even though you do if the opposite happens to you.

'Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy' Screenshot 2

The cover system is passable, but the shooter sections are generally rubbish thanks to awkward controls and irritatingly robust enemies.

Shooting never gets any better, either, as you struggle to target people until you've shot them enough to trigger the spinning-round-firing-helplessly death animation or an unconvincing contextual topple over a railing. The gun takedowns, which also use quick-time events, don't look as good as the hand-to-hand ones, although you'll still try and use them to avoid more shooting. After games like Gears of War, Uncharted and GTA IV, Bourne's alternative is a letdown.

Bland and repetitious level design and uneven gameplay isn't a very glamorous problem to have, but in the end it fits. Even the in-game advertising is boring: no, we don't want a MasterCard, but thanks for asking on every billboard in every level. You aren't going to "Become Bourne", as the box instructs, because that would be difficult, so you just perform simple approximations of a few of the things he did in the films over and over again as the game pushes you down set paths. There's no multiplayer, and for replay value all you've got is the option to hunt for glowing passports a few paces off the beaten and boring track.

There are still times when you'll enjoy yourself, but they're few and far between, and ultimately prove to be poor compensation for the loss of the intrigue, subtlety and intelligence that characterised the films and books whose bullet-riddled back the game is straddling. Whether it's possible to make a good Bourne game is debatable anyway, but this is a bad argument for another.

5 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (56) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • viper_h #1 4 years ago

    Knew this would be terrible from the shitty demo with it's QTEs that gave you less than a second to do them.

    Also, Movie To Video Game Tie In Bad Review SHOCKER!
    Edited by 1 at 30/06/08 @ 13:25

  • bad09 #2 4 years ago

    sounds fair it's not the greatest. Personally I quite liked what the demo offered and will still pick this up eventually probably 2nd hand.

  • dr_faulk #3 4 years ago

    That's disappointing...

  • muscleblade #4 4 years ago

    I actually liked this a bit more than Alone in the dark when i tested them both at my local gaming store. None of them are great thats for sure.

  • DUFFMAN5 #5 4 years ago

    For Fuck sake, so that's this and AITD off the must/might buy list. Good job Vagas 2 and Zelda fell through the letterbox this morning.

  • bushwod #6 4 years ago

    played the demo - though it was awfull.

  • penhalion #7 4 years ago

    I waved this game in my boss' face as support for my argument that QTEs should never be in games. They simply serve to force the player to guess the button while providing zero actual fun.

  • JonFE #8 4 years ago

    penhalion, the million dollars question of course is : What was his reaction to your argument?

  • Carlo #9 4 years ago

    ...and yet everyone I speak to loves it!

  • Beano #10 4 years ago

    Not as good as MGS4 then?

  • Olemak #11 4 years ago

    This could have been scored even lower. Death to QTE's!

  • space_ace #12 4 years ago

    Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Mediocrity

  • muscleblade #13 4 years ago

    More people seem to enjoy this than AitD. The metacritic scores suggest the same. I might borrow it from the store. Im not sure if i gonne buy UT3 or not. Its coming this week. My local game store got it today (UT3).

  • henro_ben #14 4 years ago

    After playing the demo I'm amazed this even managed to scrape a 5.

    QTEs should be banned.

  • dr_faulk #15 4 years ago

    Am I the only one that likes QTE's? I thought they were great in Shenmue...

  • PotajiTo #16 4 years ago

    I like QTes too. The game is not great, but not as bad for a 5, for me is a 6,5

  • FmCUK #17 4 years ago

    Sounds about right from the demo. Reminded me of a poor Die Hard Trilogy.

  • bad09 #18 4 years ago

    Ah Shenmue what a game...... They use 'em in resi 4 as well, and personally I thought they were used quite well in Bourne.

  • systems #19 4 years ago

    Played the demo when it came out - utter crap. Instantly forgotten.

  • Prime #20 4 years ago

    QTEs were one of the highlights for me in Shenmue 2.
    Don't bash QTEs just because some games can't do them correctly.

  • DUFFMAN5 #21 4 years ago

    Prime wrote: QTEs were one of the highlights for me in Shenmue 2.
    Don't bash QTEs just because some games can't do them correctly.
    ...................or go to my (thread) rant about them on the forum, you can really let off steam then.

  • Darren #22 4 years ago

    Hmmm, after Edge gave this game 4/10, it doesn't surprse me that EG have slapped 5/10 on it. The demo was OKat best but felt too on-rails to me and the combat was unexciting, both the fisticuffs and gun-based stuff. And that driving section was beyond awful. Whatever, the demo did nothing to convince me the game was worth buying.

  • Snooz #23 4 years ago

    Well then, you jumped to the last page; it's a 5/10, that's it folks you've seen it for yourself. Now move along to the next thread, nothing more to see here.
    Edited by 1 at 30/06/08 @ 14:38

  • Pulsar_t #24 4 years ago

    QTEs are fine as long as there isn't an abundance of them. GOW, Resi 4 and Shenmue used them, among others.

  • gallow #25 4 years ago

    There are only 8 possible combos for the hand to hand which is a bit poor for a fighting game.

  • Whizzo #26 4 years ago

    I really enjoyed it, it's not perfect but it was fun, I'd give it a 7/10.

  • Klinjon #27 4 years ago

    I can see this reviewer would much rather be playing a game like Kung Fu Panda, a game obviously deserving of a 7/10, whereas this, a decent looking movie tie in action title, which has braved a little creativity, gets a below average score? I suppose it's all about the ever growing number of "casual gamers" that developers need to cater for nowadays. It's attitudes to games like this that is the reason why developers like Atari (by former Sony boss Phil Harrison's own admission) won't be producing any blockbuster titles like Alone in the Dark anymore, and why? Because it's not an established franchise. Too often reviewers on this site will praise Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty over any first time effort that is released, and within the reviews themselves will always state that they are inferior to other Triple A efforts. "After games like Gears of War, Uncharted and GTA IV, Bourne's alternative is a letdown."

    We'll probably never get another Bourne game, which could potentially build upon the foundations and flaws presented within this initial effort, because of the automatically negative attitude Eurogamer and a lot of gamers have towards them. I suppose if it was Robert Ludlum's The Master Chief Conspiracy it would be a trilogy after a couple of years..

    Honestly, the double standards of some of this site reviews are shocking.. when a game presents a sizeable challenge it's deemed too difficult and unbalanced. When it's the reverse, it's bland and lacking innovation. "The cover system is passable, but the shooter sections are generally rubbish thanks to awkward controls and irritatingly robust enemies." - oh so now when the A.I. in a game are either A: too sophisticated or B: put up too difficult a challenge, that's suddenly a bad thing?

    Nice one Eurogamer.

    And in response to viper_h, "QTE's that give you less than a second to do them?!" Well they are quick time events, and they are supposed to emulate the improvisational decision making of Jason Bourne by forcing you to actually use your instincts and some skill. I've never found it that hard to press one of the four buttons that come up on screen when asked of me.. there's even a sound effect to let you know one's about to happen!

  • FmCUK #28 4 years ago

    Klinjon, of all the games to defend, I think you've picked the wrong one.

  • smoothpete #29 4 years ago

    Well I'm looking forward to it, I liked the demo and I love the films. I'm not expecting an amazing game but if Whizzo liked it then that's good enough for me

  • Paukl #30 4 years ago

    Klinjon;

    QTE's are not innovative.

    Carry on.

  • monkie_king #31 4 years ago

    Erm, this is a nothing game selling itself on its association with a blockbuster movie series.

    If anything, it's all franchise and no game.

  • Chufty #32 4 years ago

    Why are people disappointed? It's the game of the film, what were you expecting?

  • evilboo #33 4 years ago

    yes klingjon - we'll probably never get another Bourne game. The rest of the planet is mightily relieved at that prospect however. poor sods across the nation have wasted Ł40 on this rubbish. the way people jump to slag off the site whenever they get a review score they don't like is really depressing.

  • BlackSentoki #34 4 years ago

    I bought this and Bad Company at the weekend and ended up spending most of Sunday playing it. I think it's ace, to be honest. The QTEs are easier to perform in the full game (haven't missed a single one) and some of the fights are awe-inspiring - there's one at the start on a boat where my jaw was on the floor.

  • GordonBennett #35 4 years ago

    GameRankings and Metacritic both have average reviews of above 70%, which is my threshold for games I am interested in, so I'll be giving it a go.
    Besides, I often find my tastes out of kilter with Eurogamer's. Which isn't a criticism, by the way.

  • Zomoniac #36 4 years ago

    How exactly have we got a 2-page review and 37 comments on this without a single mention of Stranglehold?

  • YourMessageHere #37 4 years ago

    From the videos, QTE controversies aside, this looks like a fantastic game spoiled by bad gameplay decisions. Most notably, another game which includes realistic weapons and then has enemies that withstand 4 times as much damage as real people. Why does this keep happening? If in a game that purports to be realistic you shoot a guy with a shotgun and he fails to die unless you shoot him twice more, that IS NOT FUN. It's not 'more challenging', it's just counterintuitive and lazy, not to mention extremely uncinematic and un-Bournelike. Games like R6Vegas are far from perfect and less inherently cinematic but at least when people are shot they have the decency to die. And yes, I was reminded of Stranglehold by the videos; whyever didn't they do something like Stranglehold's Tequila-meter for the takedowns instead?.

  • Klinjon #38 4 years ago

    In response to both FmCUK and evilboo - I could select half a dozen other reviews on this site that I disagree with, but this review of Bourne was what spurred me to finally voice my thoughts and write my first ever review comment. Let me be clear: I don't have a problem with Eurogamer, or any other site, criticising a game that I like, have followed, or am interested in; what I disagree with, is this particular websites attitude to reviewing certain games. I'm not trying to "defend" The Bourne Conspiracy at all.. I'm merely using Eurogamer’s review of the game as one of countless potential examples of how their attitude to certain reviews is unfair, bias, and unjustified. The reviewer (in this case Tom Brammel) obviously didn't get given something more high profile as review code to write about (such as Bad Company, for example) and was left with a game that, going in, he clearly had no intention of giving a fair chance.

    It makes you wonder therefore (as GordonBennett rightly pointed out) why Eurogamer are scoring a game as below average when it's been hitting the 7's, 8's, and B's on every other website with a 76% average rating on Gamesrankings? Granted, Edge gave it a 4, but when every other site is able to present a balanced argument of both the pros and cons of The Bourne Conspiracy, and score it accordingly, how is it that Eurogamer can appear to be so off the mark? And I'm sure most will agree that this is not the first time that Eurogamer have either scored a game too high or too low when the majority of other sites and magazines are able to arrive at a reasonable critical consensus that reflects the true worth of a given purchase..

    Finally, in response to Paukl, I never said the QTE's were innovative. Infact I said nothing of the sort! If we're going to talk about them, then I'd say while not especially innovative, I think they've been implimented into Bourne very well, and reflect the action and pacing of the films.

  • FmCUK #39 4 years ago

    Personally I find the difference with Eurogamer compared to "every other website" is that you get opinions, most of the time you get enough to understand that opinon and you factor it into your buying choice.

    Similarly with mainstream news, I'd much rather get opinions from biased first-hand sources who believe in what they're saying than editorial that's been unbiased "for me".

    I take your point about this being a tipping point, rather than a particular cause you're fighting. But as regards to Eurogamer being different to "every other website", I find that makes them _more_ valuable to me.

  • Cyhwuhx #40 4 years ago

    .::: Weird, I've been enjoying myself immensely with this. It's the ultimate popcorn-game! Nothing of a 'classic title' in there, just pure unadulterated fast-lane gaming stuff. If only all licensed games were like this.

  • cyber_nicco #41 4 years ago

    The only problem with EG reviews are that they are written by bitter, burnt-out game players. Give them a six month vacation - all of them!

    Blue Dragon a 5? Chromehounds a 4? Remember, being cynical only makes one seem clever and mature to maudlin teens...

  • Skywise #42 4 years ago

    I like QTE's as well, Shen Mue ftw!

    And the 5 for Blue Dragon seems really generous based on the demo.

  • delta_tango #43 4 years ago

    sadly, im not really surprised :(

  • p00ntang #44 4 years ago

    I hope they don't make any more Bourne games - I found the demo frustrating beyond belief. NOT a good sign.

  • p00ntang #45 4 years ago

    Eurogamer gave it 5 BECAUSE THE POWERS THAT BE DON'T WANT YOU TO PLAY IT hoho

  • BooMMooB #46 4 years ago

    Excellent points, Klinjon. Couldn't agree more. well, except on your QTE comment.

    The QTE's in Bourne does ruin the game quite abit. And introduced as in Bourne the QTE's are nothing but showstoppers and gameruiners. That was never how QTE was intended to work. The QTE should have been a exiting 'layer' on top of the normal fighting/running, but you shouldn't be met with a gameover message every time you miss a QTE. If you miss a QT the game should just have allowed you to progress in 'normal' style just as ShenMue did in many of it's QTE's.

    That is what ruins Bourne for me. I loved everything else - the fighting shooting etc. But having to play the same 2 min. of gameplay because I missed a buttonpress is a drag.

  • Hangman #47 4 years ago

    Great game - just clocked it. Miles and miles and miles better than most movie tie-ins - the hand to hand combat is fun, amazingly brutal, gunplay is fairly decent, headshots = instant drop with lovely 'slap' sound effects. Great range of enviroments, no two levels look the same.

    It's certainly better than the shit-fest of Army of Two, and the criminally poor vegas 2, even without multi.

  • ruckus #48 4 years ago

    Well I agree with the comments that slate the way QTE's were implemented in the game - if you like 'em fair enough but the minute I failed one - redid it and it was a different button each time... my interest was gone which has to be a pretty stupid game design decision on the part of whoever implemented it.

  • mono_eric3 #49 4 years ago

    "won't be producing any blockbuster titles like Alone in the Dark anymore, and why? Because it's not an established franchise."

    err...
    Edited by 1 at 01/07/08 @ 14:01

  • Klinjon #50 4 years ago

    mono_eric3 - your "err" is because you're quoting me out of context. "developers like Atari (by former Sony boss Phil Harrison's own admission) won't be producing any blockbuster titles like Alone in the Dark anymore, and why? Because it's not an established franchise." I meant not an established franchise for them as a developer. Previous games in the series had been developed by Infogrames, but it wasn't until their acquisition of Atari that the development of the series for next gen platforms was handed over.
    Edited by 1 at 01/07/08 @ 14:34

  • bonker #51 4 years ago

    FPS in shit game shock.

  • sirtacos #52 4 years ago

    Someone should create a Bourne game (or spy game) with less shooting and explosions and more intrigue, sneakiness and disguise.
    After all, Tom Bramwell hit the nail on the head: even being Jason Bourne - Hollywood super-spy (a character created by Robert Ludlum whose books read like action movies anyway) - is not glamorous. Imagine what being a 'real' spy feels like? LeCarré was usually more on target with his representations, and they were the furthest thing from high-octane or adrenaline-fueled.
    Everyone knows this. So instead of ignoring reality completely, why not acknowledge it instead?

    Trying to recreate those 'less than glamorous' moments and making them a coherent (but not boring) part of the gameplay could be awesome. I'm thinking RPG-action-adventure-shooter where fingerprints, dialogue, deception, evasion etc come into play:

    Instead of shooting a guy, you could try talking your way out or impersonate someone else, or something. Instead of running from an explosion as bullets whistle overhead you could wipe down your hotel room or your car and make sure no cameras record your face. And if you fail or simply ignore some of these tasks, you bring more heat on yourself, possibly resulting in cat-and-mouse chases around the city or all-out battles with your pursuers.

    Basically, a game that presents you with a more gritty and 'real' version of being a spy, or a spy/hitman on the run (or whatever) and lets you make choices and deal with the consequences.

    ...but that's probably too ambitious. It's one of those things that sounds good on paper but would probably be a nightmare to make.

  • Placebo #53 4 years ago

    Great books.
    Decent movies.
    Shite game.

  • evilboo #54 4 years ago

    Closing Comments
    If you've ever wanted a taste of what it's like to be a lethal weapon, The Bourne Conspiracy will give you a quick taste of that – at least when hand-to-hand combat is concerned. The power, brutality and creativity that Jason Bourne uses in the films are excellently handled with the hand-to-hand system. Unfortunately, the shooting and driving mechanics leave much to be desired. However, as a potential jumping off point for a Bourne franchise, this is a good start for High Moon and Sierra.

    This is ign's summary of a (in their view) 7.5 out of 10 game. Note "quick taste" / "at least" / unfortunately" / "potential jumping off point". I think IGn 's marking is generous and eurogamer is nearer the mark. The demo was terrible. Klingjon etc. please note - we can disagree about the game, but don't slag off the site because you don't like the score they give. There is no conspiracy! (except against rubbish games.)

  • timberwolf #55 4 years ago

    it's better than alone in the dark.. even though the shooting and driving are similarly flawed.. why 5???

  • smoothpete #56 4 years ago

    I'm totally loving this game. Ok so it's flawed, but it's very, very good fun