Nice 3 button fighting hurt by zero replay value. In a game so short, they spent time actually making a driving level.
First the game mechanics, since they are the main attraction of this game. For those of you who didn't see the game in action, the hand-to-hand fighting is pretty fun at first, albeit simplish. One button is used for weak attacks and one for strong attacks, you can charge those, and one button is used for blocking. As the tradition demands, there are simple 3-hit combos you can chain up in the baddies' faces, all the while filling a 3 section adrenaline meter when succesfully attacking someone hand to hand or with a gun. That's where things get fun. When a third of that bar is full, you can perform a "Takedown" ; which usually means lights out for the bad guy and expressions of pain on the faces of your friends witnessing it. Bourne will also enjoy breaking bones to the point where a chunk of his health is replenished after a Takedown as a bonus too...
Some Takedowns will involve turning the weapon of your foe against him, which is immensely satisfying ; some will have Bourne inflict nasty strikes to genitalia or other soft targets on poor ennemies ; others will have Bourne use his surroundings to drop shelves on his foes, burn them, drown them, throw them face first through a desk, a truck or even kick 'em down a plane.
One button is actually THE Bourne instinct ; makes you see objectives on the map, single out ennemies and aim your gun better. It's usefulness is infinite, use it as often as you want, that's the advantage of being the man. It makes the game very easy since you never wonder what to do if you only use the Instinct. It also makes the game shorter since there is absolutely no exploration element in there whatsoever because a press of Triangle shows ammo crates & where to run to on your map.
But still, by then you actually start to like the Bourne character you're playing as in this game. Things keep throwing themselves in his way but he always come out shining. When playing him, he feels pretty darn strong, like he can take on anything and anyone, just short of Kratos from God of War on the video game prowess scale.
Many action sequences use the ole' Dragon Lair 's "Interactive" movie principles (used more succesfully in God of War I & II recently), where a pre-rendered movie sequence run and you timely press the correct buttons when asked or either suffer eternal "Reload Checkpoint" limbo. The same mechanic is used in boss fights and does spice things up ; a sound chimes in and the fight slows down to show you a button to press, success means you keep advantage on the boss and hurt him a little, failure means he does a Takedown on you. Sometimes Bourne will use this system to avoid certain death (or die, or get caught in lots of pretty pathetic ways), sometimes when remembering a flashback, he will snipe a bunch of guys with you only requiring to press Triangle Square X O or R1. Pretty tired formula if you ask me, but it could be cool if they didn't rely on it all the time in this game...
The game then tries to push it further by adding gunfight mechanics along with a couple of pistols, a smaller auto, a couple of auto rifles and a couple of shotguns. The adrenaline meter is also used for Takedowns, only difference is you can kill more than one guy on the same Takedown and it does not use any ammo. You can chain up a lot of kills on the harder difficulty settings and it can look a little ridiculous to kill some guy behind cover eighty feet from you... Apparently Kennedy was shot using a Takedown because the way you can kill anyone on the map from anywhere with a third of your adrenaline full is pretty silly.
Other than that the gun mechanics can be clumsy but are OK. There's just not a lot of fun shooting up guys when you can be beating them up and having their buddies shoot them up instead. Hand to hand combat in this game is so much more fun than another generic third person shooter, you're just trying to run up to guys to whack them in the tables and walls instead of pumping them with a twelve-gauge shotgun.
After a while the same Takedowns start to show back again and again, and you start to realize you pretty much saw them all. Once in a while you see a new one, but one second and it's over. It starts wearing thin... Then you get to the driving stage...
Yes... Somebody thought it would be cool wasting precious development time integrating some kind of car-driving portion to this game. Basically you run away from the police until a blockage is cleared, then drive away some more. For around five minutes of our precious lives. In the most unrealistic car ever built on a PS3. You speed up and turn like you weight 600 lbs, yet you flip over other cars like they are toys and run UNDER them like you weight a ton. Not fun and almost disturbing to see their idea of a driving game. A time limit also makes the number of times you are allowed to crash limited, adding oil to the fire of your anger. Basically a frustrating way to screw up the tone they almost succesfully sustained to that point. You only started to see chinks in the game's armor, but now you saw it's ugly side.
The worst part (or good depending if you are cynical) is that the game is almost over after that. And once it's over, that's it. Sure there are "Accomplishments" but really no new content, no reason to play through again. This is the biggest let-down of The Bourne Conspiracy, it's over too soon, way too soon. Most of the Accomplishments deal with clearing a stage not using hand-to-hand and gun Takedowns.
This leaves completionist (read masochists here) to play through a game using only the very basic weak-strong-block combat system and the very ordinary third-person shooting mechanics. Basically, not the fun way to play The Bourne Conspiracy. Maybe they thought playing through a stage without Takedowns is challenging, I only find it boring...
The graphics are certainly not flamboyant for a PS3 game but are good. They do a good job using the Unreal engine to convince the audience that bones indeed should not bend that way, but these things aren't anything unseen in video games nowadays. The driving stage's graphics were bland and more of a stain on this game than something that added to it...
The sounds were OK as far as fighting goes. The hits and bullet impacts sound good and clear, which is good since you'll be hearing them non-stop. Some music tracks were secure from the movies, but you'll mostly be treated to techno and trip-hop mixes when they aren't on. I liked the modulation effect that happens in boss fights when they try a Takedown on you, the song is warped to show time being slowed down and it does sound great when you notice it. Points deducted for the annoying girl screaming at you for the entire later half of the game.
All in all, when it all boils down to it, you end up with a very easy game taking around 3 hours, five at the very most with the reload checkpoint limbo for gamers with difficuties on some stage maybe... Worst is that the game seems to only be able to show you three hours of good time then you pretty much saw it all, or you'll have to run through the game again to try that one Takedown on the boiling pot on the kitchen stove...
The way you rely on the Bourne Instinct all the time, it seems like you are just being lead by the hand most of the time and the stupid mandatory "wait behind cover to recover health" play mechanic (thank you Halo grrr) means only the unluckiest will ever be fell by bullets. Even after infection from carrying over 600 lbs of bullets in his body from gunshot wounds, Bourne still runs...
The time they spent on the car stage should have been spent on adding any replay value in there. The gun mechanics aren't fun and seem tacked on. The hand-to-hand fighting saves this game from being a waste, awful and totally boring but once you saw all the pre-rendered Takedowns you are alone in your room with a very easy and shallow fighting game where you have to labor through shooting a ton of guys. It sure could have been a lot better, but it could have been worse and I guess that it does deserve a rental.
I definitely DO NOT RECOMMEND BUYING this game. It is way too short and will leave you frustrated on the first day you own it because you know it will be over by the next day. You could collect every Passeport on a stage to get every single boss battle challenge, gallery art and music select, but really nothing worth a second playthrough.
Rent it and have some fun for a night roughing up guys in baclavas and SWAT gear. Just don't buy it or you'll be looking to trade it in pretty soon.