An interesting take on the Bourne series.

User Rating: 8 | Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy PS3
The Bourne Conspiracy is a third person action adventure game from Sierra Entertainment in which players play as Jason Bourne the CIA agent who's lost memory but not his abilities. The game is based on Robert Ludlum's books involving Jason Bourne but players may be more familiar with the series of films that were released in which Matt Damon played Jason Bourne. The game follows the movie's plot to quite an extent but also adds some new content as well. The primary difference between the film and the game is the notable absence of Matt Damon. On another note anyone who's seen the films will know that The Bourne Conspiracy is the second film in the trilogy yet the game primarily follows The Bourne Identity which is the first one.

The Bourne Conspiracy's graphics are great but not over the top. The in game graphics are great and look fantastic. Guns, character models and the scenery look believable and well done. However the cut scenes leave a lot to be desired. The cut scenes don't look nearly as good as the in game graphics do and come across as dull and appear to use an older style of graphics possibly like the ones used on the PS2 or even PS1. Quite often the cut scenes look grainy as players can see what seems like some sort of grain in the cut scenes.

The Bourne Conspiracy's gameplay is very good and quite solid. There are three types of gameplay element in The Bourne Conspiracy in order from least to the more plentiful. The least common type is the driving mission. There's only one time in the entire game that players get to drive a vehicle and while the controls for that segment feel very solid for the most part. It feels like a waste as players only drive a vehicle once through the entire game. While the segment is cool and feels like it's straight out of the movie players don't get to do any other segments of driving though out the game. The more common type is the shooting parts. These parts are quite common and well executed. The guns that players use sound and feel like actual guns and not some cheap knock offs. However players can't crouch at all in these scenes except when they get behind cover which is a bit unrealistic. The main type of gameplay is the hand to hand combat. While not as sophisticated as other games the main attraction of this type are the takedowns. These takedowns are quite brutal to some extent and works with the concept that anything can be used as a weapon. Unfortunately players can't fully do that. If they do it's only during a takedown and briefly. It would have been nice if the creators had made the controls a little but more user friendly instead of limiting them to just two attack buttons that aren't easy to string together combo attacks.

The Bourne Conspiracy's audio is spot on and sounds great. Even though Matt Damon doesn't voice Bourne the voice actor chosen to voice Bourne sounds believable and matches the character quite well. Furthermore it sounds like they were able to get some of the people who worked on the film to reprise their roles and do the soundtrack for the game. The main actors players may remember are Bourne's former boss and Marie an innocent bystander that gets drawn into Bourne's world. The musical score sounds like it's by the same people who did the film's score which is a nice touch.

Overall The Bourne Conspiracy is great game that while short players are sure to enjoy.