Platform: PS3, Xbox 360
Finally, a movie-inspired game that puts up a fight
Call me the imperfect weapon. Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy transforms players into a bulletproof Hollywood assassin. Taking cues from the Bourne films’ breathless editing, the game propels you through frantic gunfights, car chases and melees. But somehow I’m not up to the task. As Jason Bourne, I regularly find myself catching one hunk of lead too many, sprawling bloodied across the marble floor of the Zurich International Airport. I find myself mired in epic fistfights. Falling over and over to aggressive enemies I retreat into a safe but sluggish rhythm—a hail of punches, turtling behind my forearms, then another flurry. Finally, my adrenaline builds and a Polaroid flash explodes in the back of my lizard brain. I nimbly sidestep my opponent, wrench his arm and slam him face-first into a nearby copying machine. But it’s no good. I barely catch my breath before another stooge corners me and cuts me down. This is a movie game, I tell myself incredulously. This is supposed to be easy. It’s also supposed to be awful. Surprisingly, Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy is neither.