Preview: Bourne Conspiracy Demo
Grab your tin-foil hats people, A conspiracy has landed on Xbox Live Marketplace (and soon on PSN too) but they don’t want us to talk about it. Who doesn’t want us to talk about it? Can’t say - what if you’re one of them? Well we’re gonna talk about it anyway, sod ‘em. The top-secret information held within this document is regarding The Bourne Conspiracy Demo - currently available only to our overseas friends (Australia, New Zealand, India and North America - they’re all plotting against us) but we’ve managed to access the demo ourselves via subterfuge, suits and Ray-Bans.
We are talking about the public demo to The Bourne Conspiracy, the upcoming game from developer, High Moon Studios (Sierra owned studio), creators of Darkwatch for the PS2. The Bourne Conspiracy follows the events of the first three films, with many scenes re-imagined to render them more suitable for the medium of a video-game. If this approach is successful then hopefully more developers will follow in the footsteps when creating a licensed game. The Demo contains 3 levels, which is an early sign that this is going to be quite a meaty game…
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The Bourne Conspiracy is a game I have been watching out for this year. It looks like it’s going to be really good, though I did have my doubts - considering that it’s a cash-in franchise game. I was still, nonetheless impressed by the gameplay videos I’d seen. The Bourne Conspiracy, as mentioned earlier, follows the events of the trilogy of films starring Matt Damon. The game however does not feature Matt Damon. This is in no way a bad thing though. Instead they have implemented a Jason Bourne character which they feel fits the role better, something which could fortunately be achieved through the medium of videogames.
The demo itself weighs in at about 1.3 gigabytes and contains 3 sections of levels from the full game, each showcasing a gameplay type featured in the full version. I’ll start where it makes sense to start, at the beginning. The first level is there to showcase the hand-to-hand combat on offer. It’s based on the escape from the embassy (not sure which film it’s from as I haven’t seen any of them). The beginning cut-scene neatly cuts into the gameplay, an action which is used numerous times throughout the level which gives the player a great feeling as if they are part of a great cinematic. The fighting system is solid, though Takedowns are the real highlight of the melee sections.
Takedowns are the “finishing moves” of the game. If you’re fighting someone then just hit the Takedown button and you’ll either rough them up or smash them into a piece of scenery thus, knocking them out (or killing them) - unless they’re a boss (yes there are bosses in the game, people who take a few more hits to down). The Scenery Takedowns are one of my favourite things about the game. It’s not obvious like in many games, where it will say “Press so and so to smash opponent into whiteboard”.
In Conspiracy you press Takedown wherever you see fit and if you happen to be close to a bit of scenery then you’ll interact with it (the enemy’s head usually interacting with it the most). You can’t just press Takedown any time you want, willy nilly though - that’d be too easy (and silly). Instead, you have to charge up a multi-tiered “adrenaline bar”. The more tiers you have filled the more people you can take out with one Takedown. It’s a great system and you should play the demo yourself to really get to grips with it.
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» Preview: Bourne Conspiracy Demo — 6 May, 2008 @ 7:46 pm
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By kPod, 6 May, 2008 @ 8:19 pm
MATT DAMON!
By Sean Millar, 13 May, 2008 @ 4:17 pm
I thought the shooting could have been better as i feel it was a little slow and sluggish, The enemy AI could have been better especially in the shooting section of the demo(Guards were just standing there waiting to be shot or hiding behind 1 set piece of cover while pop up and down only to be shot by me standing 2 feet infront of them)..
I would say this game is a definate rent or maybe a second hand buy…