The Bourne Conspiracy (Xbox 360) Preview

Posted by Theo Fraser on 03.19.2008

411’s own Theo Fraser goes hands-on with The Bourne Conspiracy and walks away suitably impressed. Check out why you should be excited about Jason Bourne’s latest escapade inside!

This past Sunday, I attended the Play.com LIVE event held at Wembley Stadium, which you can read more about in my exclusive report. As part of the proceedings, I was able to go hands-on with a ton of top titles that will be released periodically throughout the year. Walking away from the event, the game that left the best impression on me was The Bourne Conspiracy on the Xbox 360, developed by High Moon Studios in conjunction with Sierra Entertainment. I managed to obtain a 20 minute + playtest with the title, and thus got a pretty in-depth look at how it plays in the early portion of the game.







Three levels were on offer to gamers at the event, so naturally I began from the beginning. The first mission served as a training ground, although don't let that fool you into thinking it was easy. Honestly, it was rock hard, and I died numerous times! Jason Bourne is tasked with escaping an Embassy, and whilst you're allowed to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the embassy staff, you can't physically tackle the military (who are after you for an unknown reason. Disrupting a peaceful embassy might have something to do with it though…), because they have Very Big Guns™. You're thrown right into the mix as the tutorial leads you through the basics of combat, encouraging you to pull off a couple of combos on your enemies by tapping the X and Y buttons. I was immediately struck by how cinematic the whole experience is. For starters, when engaging in combat, the camera zooms in to focus on you and your opponent, showing your head down to your waist. This intimate view really helps you feel connected with the action, and makes each blow seem all the more powerful as you're right there with it."Takedown" manoeuvres are introduced to you shortly after you've gotten to grips with the combos, which are activated with a single press of the B button once a meter has been filled (and is done so by racking up combos). These Takedowns are context-sensitive, with Bourne bouncing foes' heads off of concrete counters, tossing people into walls, or simply driving them into the floor with a well-aimed martial arts move if there are no objects around. I'll mention some more of these Takedowns throughout the preview, but suffice to say they're very impressive, especially when you have no idea that a particular object could be interacted with.







I mentioned the presence of the military earlier, and part way through the level, they'll storm the building, and you have around 2 minutes to get out. As I said, you can't directly fight them, which means lots of running away, sprinting down corridors as they pepper you with bullets. This is where I had trouble, as Bourne can take about 3-4 bullets before he falls in defeat. The army begin to seal off areas of the building, which meant that I kept running into dead ends, only to be met by a bunch of soldiers who were only too happy to shoot first and ask questions later. It's around this point that the game introduces Quick Time Events, a la Shenmue, or more recently Heavenly Sword. These function as you would expect, although it's refreshing to see how seamlessly they tie in with the in-game gameplay, which actually caught me off guard a few times as I wasn't expecting the QTEs at all. The window of opportunity is relatively small as well, so you'll always be kept on your toes. In this instance, Jason runs down a corridor as the military begin to close the shutters and you have literally a second to follow the on-screen queue, allowing Jason to slide under the shutter, Indiana Jones style. At this point, I kept getting absolutely annihilated by the military, and decided to give up and try the other levels. Yes, I realise that means I ‘failed' the training mission. Don't tease me, I'm very fragile.

The second mission available to Play.com LIVE attendees starts you out at a train station, chasing an escaped convict down the train tracks. Trains interrupt your pursuit, forcing you to take cover behind conveniently placed pillars. This also serves as cover from the many goons that have infiltrated the area, and you get your first taste of gunplay. Pressing into the walls, you can pop out and fire off a few rounds, and just like the hand-to-hand combat, it all works very well. The camera hovers at a nice distance behind Jason, being close enough to keep the cinematic experience, whilst being far enough back to ensure that you get a good view of what you're shooting at. Just because combat has transitioned to firearms, it doesn't mean your other tools are rendered useless. Building up the Takedown meter allows you to perform Gun Takedowns, which have pinpoint accuracy and take down foes in one hit. Handy when you're in a bind! The level continues until you emerge at a small airport, and you'll have to work your way towards the plane before it flies off, carrying the convict with it. A successful QTE ensures that you jump into the cargo hold, at which point the level continues from inside the plane.

Here, Jason has to work his way to the front of the plane, dealing with various bodyguards along the way. Some awesome context-sensitive Takedowns occur here, including booting some unfortunate soul out of the back of the plane! His buddies try to avenge him by taking the handbrake off a truck, and you have a split-second QTE to dodge out of the way as it rolls towards you. More combat ensues, and it was here that I noticed how good the actual hand-to-hand fighting looks. Each blow really connects and makes an impact, and in keeping with the films, the emphasis is on this aspect rather than a ton of gore. Having said that, the touches of gore work really well, such as Jason Bourne's no-resemblance-to-Matt-Damon face slowly ‘deforming' in real-time as he takes hits.

Upon reaching the front of the plane, the convict appears, and an intense, hard-fought battle ensues. You'll have to soften him up with a few takedowns (including one awesome strike where you rip a fire extinguisher off the wall and clunk him round the back of the head with it), and then things get REALLY interesting as he pulls a knife on you. Yes, that does mean it's a fight of fist vs knife. Those are not my kind of odds! But by slowly chipping away at his health with combos and takedowns, you'll finally finish him off for good. Except THEN you realise that the pilot is dead, and the plane is going down! Jason has 12 seconds to get off the plane, so you have to ignore the other goons that try to get in your way, and look for an exit of some sort. Running to the back, I grabbed a parachute and with 1 second to spare leapt out of the open cargo hold and parachuted to safety. This concluded the second level.







The narrative seemingly skipped again, and we open the third and final level of the demo with Jason and an unidentified female cohort inside a Mini (a staple for the Bourne series), and we are on the streets of Paris. What follows is a relatively short level, but one that more than makes up for it in intensity. You have to race through the busy streets of Paris, avoiding the cops (who are all over the place), circling the area until a tunnel opens up, which provides you with an exit. I know this is going to sound like extreme hyperbole, but trust me when I say that this was seriously one of the best in-game car chases I have EVER played. Paris is jam-packed with traffic and other obstacles, and you'll be swerving all over the place to avoid a collision. There's a fun sequence where hitting a ramp sends you soaring over two police cars below you, who promptly smash into the ramp from the front. Quick Time Events are interspersed with the action, one of which caught me off guard, causing me to fail the mission the first time round. In a nice touch, Bourne's car is surrounded by Parisian police as a result of the QTE fail, and Jason sticks his hands up in surrender. The level is completed with a short sequence of QTEs, capped off as you narrowly miss an oncoming bus, which inadvertently blocks off the other police cars, allowing you to make your escape. It only lasts a few minutes, but in my opinion these driving sections could be a game in their own right. The car handles incredibly well, and its just an exhilarating experience, which left me wanting more.


There was no indication as to how far along the build was, but it was certainly very solid, with no obvious glitches or anything of that ilk. The only thing that gave away that it was a preview version was the disclaimer during longer cutscenes (which book-ended the levels) that stated that the scenes were subject to change and were merely temporary to fill space.
One minor niggle that I'd make would be about the camera work. I appreciate the fact that it draws in pretty close during fights, pulling you into the action and giving a very cinematic and atmospheric feel to the proceedings, but things can get a little disorientating at times. The same problem occurs when running, as there appears to be no "centre camera" button; the camera is controlled freely with the right thumbstick, which is fine, but you'll constantly have to re-adjust it when moving round corners. It doesn't detract a great deal from the proceedings, but it can be a cause of frustration, and left in its current state could prevent the game from attaining the ‘perfect' status that it is well on its way to in the gameplay department.

The Bourne Conspiracy is due out on Xbox 360 and PS3 this Fall, and I'd keep a very close eye on this one, as it has all the makings of a classic. I saw a heck of a lot in 20 minutes, so I can't begin to imagine what kind of surprises Jason Bourne has up his sleeves in regards to the rest of the game. That tiny gripe I mentioned aside, this is quite simply going to rock. I can't remember a time when I've been more tempted to spill the cash for a 360, and coming from one of the biggest Nintendophiles on the planet, that's saying something. Look for more coverage on The Bourne Conspiracy here at 411mania in the coming future.

Screenshots
All 9 The Bourne Conspiracy Screenshots