Bourne Conspiracy is in essence the video game version of the first Bourne Identity movie, with a few extra situations thrown in. There are some great cinematics - but a few gameplay issues as well.

First, the good. The fight scenes in the game are fairly impressive looking. You interact with the environment, weave back from kicks, and it looks immersive.

If you're a fan of the story / movie, it's fun going into the scenes and then delving beyond it as well. It's satisfying to end up the game and reach the movie ending, and getting that sense of completion.

But this causes a problem too. Most of us by now equate Jason Bourne with a man with a certain look and feel and voice. This Bourne character is nothing like that. Surely we've had this challenge with other games before, where they didn't have the rights to the likeness. But here it's a real issue. The character we get is fairly dull, plodding, and monotone. Since we have such high hopes for him, it's a fair letdown.

The fights can look brilliant. But the trade-off is that they are extremely scripted. They aren't organic and natural. Instead, the reason they can look so powerful is that they are full of built-in movie sequences. You're mashing along and suddenly you lose control while something happens. Then you get control again, and just when you're getting into the fight it's lost again.

There are some great sequences, where you stealthily creep up on enemies and take them down. There are other silly sequences. The problem is that they're all mixed in together.

Another problem is that the game is relatively short. So even if you do enjoy the story, and immersing yourself in this world, you don't get that pleasure for long.

I'd recommend renting the game. That way you can play through it and see how you enjoy it. If you do enjoy it, then that's fine! You can always buy it then. But if you're done in a day and have no desire to play it again, you haven't paid the full price for it.

We purchased this game with our own funds in order to do this review.

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