The real meat of the game is the hand-to-hand combat. Here you get to really feel like Bourne and just kick butt.
The controls are very simple and not all that deep, and yet stay pretty satisfying throughout the whole game. You only get a light and heavy attack, but you can combine them in multiple three hit combos. As you get hits in, you build up adrenaline which allows you to perform take-downs. These are very cool and truly show off what a bad ass Bourne is. Best of all is there are tons of environmental take-downs, for example hitting a guys head into a wall, attempting to drown him in a basin or the classic stabbing his hand with a pen (ouch!).
Take-downs also apply to the shooting part of the game, but are far less interesting to watch and do, although they are pretty handy for speeding up the dull gun battles.
The animation is very impressive with a fairly wide range of attack moves both for you and your opponents. The only downside is that the controls are not as responsive as I would have liked. While this is certainly not a button masher, I generally expect an attack to always happen as soon as I press the button, not just some of the time. It can be a bit hit and miss. The boss fights are basically extended fights and not only can they take multiple take-downs, but they can also perform them on you, unless you are quick enough to press a button in time to stop them.
That’s right; timed-action-sequences are in this game too! While it is getting a bit tiresome that so many games are using this feature I must admit it is done very well here and in a multitude of interesting ways. Firstly you are given a decent amount of warning time before one happens and they are fairly forgiving to do.
The visuals are decent. They won't wow anyone but they're not ugly either. Running on Unreal Engine 3, you would hope it would be a bit more visually outstanding. There was one boss fight during a lighting storm where I remember being impressed, unfortunately that happens early in the game so it was kind of downhill from there.
The voice-acting is forgettable but the rest of the audio is very good. The music does a fantastic job of maintaining the tension and excitement of the levels and the gunfire and sounds of each gruesome punch landing sounds just right.
Considering the only replay value in the game comes in three different difficulty levels, some unlockable artwork, collecting passports throughout the levels and being able to replay the boss fights; somehow a 6-8 hour game just doesn’t feel like enough. Call me crazy (or genius!) but if a game is the length of your average expansion pack, I would expect to pay the same price as the average expansion pack, not full price.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying the game should have been longer, in fact I believe it is the perfect length for the gameplay and experience. I just don't think it should be placed and/or priced among the ranks of fuller single-player games such as Bioshock or Metal Gear Solid 4 for example. It is a shame really, if the game were cheaper I may have recommended it but at this point, while The Bourne Conspiracy is a great game people should try, it's only a rental for now.
