This is far form what I expected, pure crap. Thanks for turning one of my fav moive character into a dumb.
I mean…this game is clearly not made for me. Due to lack of multiplayer, nowadays action games are heavily rely on the replay value and the freedom of the game to attract people to buy and play the game, but in terms of these features , they are completely omitted form this game. Take some successful action games like hitman, splinter cell and metal gear solid for example, the map design offers you great freedoms and choice of actions, player can choose to go stealth and carefully sneak around the map, achieve the objectives without triggering a single alarm, or player can also choose to do things in mafia way, kill people, blow up every things. You can have many different ways of approach, not only in terms of routes, but style too. In this game, it feels like it was in half life 1 era, when the game tells you to go stealth, you go stealth; when the game tells you to punch people like this is in UFC, you do what the game told you to . You can't climb; you can't dive into the water, unless the damn game allows you to do so. The environments are detail and I believe the developers tried to create a realistic environment, but they are so linear, you rarely able to find different ways to complete your mission.
I don't really have an idea about the plot. I rarely enjoyed the game, and I stopped half way because I just can't take it anymore. I think this game is closely base on the Bourne Identity movie, even the opening scene feels almost identical. Most of the sound tracks are taken form the movie, which is a good thing, but why is Matt Damon not featured in the game? He is not even the voice actor for Jason Bourne. I mean if you featured the soundtracks form the movie, I would expect you to follow the movie entirely by having the actors in the movie to play the character and roles in the game accordingly, but in this case, no.
As far as the game play goes, this game makes Bourne looks dumb. When I heard the name Jason Bourne, the first thing came to my mind is he's like a shadow. A shadow you can't touch. He came unnoticed, and rarely fail to approach in stealth, although Jason is good at CQB, but he tried to avoid confrontation as much as possible, he only fights when he needed to, most of time he was trying to run and hide from his enemies, instead of FIGHTING them. In the movie there was massive fighting but get this, he don't take EVERYONE with fists! (Beside, movies are not mean to be realistic, they are more towards entertaining, but if you want to make a hardcore solid Spy game, or a assassin game, you should make it as realistic as possible.) In this game, regardless whether you like it, you will engage in fight often, by often I mean constantly, all the time. You get explosion, helicopter will chase you, it makes you feel like in an action movie, playing a hard American hero who just can't die, not a real life spy. I mean come on, I got helicpoter chased at me and I took it down with pistol by blowing some fuel tanks! Who does that in real life! If I want action and explosion, I play Killzone and Rainbow Six Vegas, if I want fighting, I play UFC or Devil may cry. I don't want to have a hybrid which doesn't know what it wants to focus on and mess up everything.
The combat system is a pain in the ass. It is not a problem if I can take down the enemies using combination or the game offers fairly big maps and freedoms to sneak around to avoid CQB. Here, the AIs are always willing to engage in close combat with you. You have the take down system that build up your adrenaline by each successful strike to the opponent, and when the adrenaline reaches to certain level then you can perform the takedown. Crap. This is not fantasy game guys, why do I have to punch a guy in the face a few times to boost my adrenaline in order to perform a take down? Shouldn't he be down with 1-2 punches regardless of he's civilian or a guard? I mean in the movie, we understand that people are not been taken down in single punch because they want to make the fight more interesting to watch, but this case, this is a game which should feature realistic human behavior. I can punch a boss like hundred of times and his health bar is still green, but after a few take down he will be drop dead in a matter of seconds, as if the normal punches have completely no effects on him. I played the game in hard form the beginning; the AI blocks constantly and really makes the fight long and boring. I punch you a few times, you blocked, ok now it's your turn, I will just block…Ok, it's my turn, I will just smack the button, no big deal, lalalalala…I mean this is like a turn base game, only worst, coz it's boring. If I want to play a turn based game I would stick to my favorite Heroes of Might and Magic series, not a Bourne game! The developer should learn form games like mirror's edge, or even hitman, where featured nice hand to hand combat systems without breaking too much of the original game concept. Take down should be something you perform in the right time with the right combination of joystick and button like a fighting game, that would be more fun, and when you get more familiar with the game, you can be fluent and fast, instead of one guard takes you 1 minutes to fight and there are still three more waiting to challenge you, it really ruins the game. If you really agree with me, try mirror's edge, EA added a nice combat system without actually make the game into a fist fest.
Bourne instinct is just some cheap slow motion which I really don't like it. You can use it too often which makes me wonder if it is just some nasty joke put on by the developers: "The players these days are too dumb to aim and discover things on their own, why not aid them frequently by adding a instinct system?" "Yes, you are right! They are dumb!" Man, I would expect myself to find the point of interest, target, or any other things by myself, instead of activated an "instinct." Even if you want to aid us, try to go it with less offensive way to make players thinks it is a joke. Killzone 2 is a perfect example in this case, the aiding system is so nice and yet, you don't feel that you've been treated like some idiot who don't know how to find the way……
The AI is ok, they knows how to cover themselves, but sometimes they will just shoot you without cover, and like I said, they willing to engage in CQB with you. They shoot with poor accuracy, but anyway, that's not a big deal.
I think this is what I'm going to say. I hyped on this game, but at that time I didn't own a console. Then I got this game when I got my PS3, and then….I plan to sell it…