The brutally satisfying hand-to-hand combat makes up for the relatively short single-player.
The game is based around The Bourne Identity, so the plot is no shocker and begins with the same story: Jason Bourne is found floating in the open seas by a group of sea faring individuals and has a severe case of amnesia. The game plays out the same way as the movie with a few differences: the plot holes left in the gap between The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Conspiracy are explained by a series of flashbacks that provide refreshing new substance to the predictable game. Those unfamiliar with the movie will get the most out of the storyline because it will be entirely new and the story will absolutely amaze them.
Visually, the game is nothing special. It's generally a very generic look, but levels look real enough to be compared to their real life movie counterparts. Impressive as that may be, the main flaws in the visual design are the character models. The same enemies often return repeatedly throughout the game and ruin the realistic renderings of the levels. The player's character is generic in terms of video game protagonists but just so happens to be one of the more unique models in the game. Overall, the game looks like real but feels fake.
The animations however, are spot on. Pretty much everything reacts to your actions and behaves the way it really should, which becomes evident during the main aspect of gameplay: combat. Conspiracy's hand-to-hand combat is perhaps the most enjoyable, fluid, fully developed aspect of the game and is relatively simplistic. There's a heavy strike, a light strike, and an unblockable kick that is slow to land, an understandable trade-off for being so strong. Attacks can be stringed together into 3 hit combos, with 8 possible combinations, which is relatively few but still incredibly satisfying. It feels great to soften a guy up with 2 light punches and then bust his face in with a heavy shot, followed by the unnecessary kick to the stomach for good measure.
Gunplay is quite a different story. Though it's not broken, shooting someone is not the same experience as the fisticuffs. Armed with a rifle and a handgun, the player is free aiming most of the time, but can activate a special sensory ability dubbed the "Bourne Instinct" to snap the aiming reticule onto the nearest target. There are also gun takedowns but simply pressing a button and firing for an instant kill to perform it is essentially the same as regular shooting, only with a tacky aiming animation to show the shot. It's still a fun experience, but after the satisfying striking game that Bourne packs, the guns just don't hold a candle in comparison.
But lovable as the combos are and as loathable as the shooting is, there's nothing that compares to the wonderful takedowns. Takedowns are reflexive based button-presses that allow you to attack one or more enemies with enthralling and unique attacks. Similar to the counter-kills in Assassin's Creed, these hand-to-hand attacks add some variety to the game and really make the combat better. There are rare times when you get to take down multiple enemies at once, which is a little harder to do and requires a chain of perfectly timed button-presses to perform. Though the takedown animations tend to repeat for both solo takedowns and group takedowns, the experience of busting a guy in the face with essentially everything in immediate your surroundings never gets old.
Takedowns become a core aspect of the game due to their major role in boss fights. Bosses are very proficient at fighting; not only can they take multiple takedowns, they can dish out the punishment just as well as Bourne. This toughness is actually a great thing, as this gives the player the chance to perform many unique takedowns specific to the current boss battle involving environments far more interactive than the usual levels.
Bosses can be replayed but in order to do so, passports must be collected. This is where the fast-paced gameplay can actually hurt the replayability of the game. While any slower game would normally take about 4, 5 hours to complete, Conspiracy can be completed in about two to two and a half hours. Now, the game can be replayed like any other game but the collectibles (the passports) make the experience worse upon replay since it slows the fast pace down to a grinding halt, which is very off-putting for a rapid game like Conspiracy.
The audio is simply perfect. Taking cues from the movie franchise, Conspiracy features music from the movies that is sure to please both fans and casuals alike. The music is fitting for every situation, with tense moments sounding incredibly dangerous, action sounding intense, and chases sounding like your very life depended on exactly how fast you can run. The sound effects are as real as it gets. Every weapon is unique and fires the way the real weapon fires, with the level of damage depending on which weapon you're using, where you hit your target, and how far away you are from the target itself. The punches sound so strong that it's surprising foes never double over in pain right from the get-go. Even light punches have their own satisfying crunch.
One of the few problems with the game is crashing. The game, fresh out of the box with the plastic wrapping still tightly bound, repeatedly freezes up in the middle of the adrenaline rushing action at a rate that is not often enough to more than briefly break up the action but not infrequently enough to be anything less than an annoyance. While not entirely fazing, it is definitely a turn off to the otherwise stellar game.
Though it's not a Hollywood blockbuster, The Bourne Conspiracy is one of the better movie games on any platform. It has frequent freezing problems and its gunplay is forgettable, but the brutally satisfying hand-to-hand combat makes up for the relatively short single-player. The only real complaint? It needs more Matt Damon.