If you enjoyed watching Jason Bourne destroy a man’s spirit with his bare hands and chase evil in a Mini Cooper while dodging exploding fire hydrants and crashing through store windows, you’ll love playing as the badass spy in The Bourne Conspiracy. The game, although not a sequel to the Bourne trilogy, transitions the movie’s aura and ambiance ever so smoothly, demonstrating that beginning-to-end nonstop action is not as cliché as John Woo has made it out to be.

The action and story from the game streams from The Bourne Identity and adds flashback missions so it doesn’t feel like a carbon copy of the movie. The first thing you’ll notice is that you’re not Matt Damon. You don’t sound like him, you don’t look like him; basically High Moon Studios wanted to steer all focus from the celebrity to the character, and I applaud them for that. Or maybe it’s because Damon wanted too much money for the role, we’ll never know.

The Bourne Conspiracy wastes no time getting into the action. The hand-to-hand combat is pure brilliance. Using the Unreal engine for its graphics, the fighting literally took my breath away. I was looking to pulverize my next enemy the second after I performed one of the game's beautiful take downs on my current unlucky schmuck. Now I know how Randy Orton feels after an RKO.

The button layout isn’t overly complicated either. Which makes the fighting just that more enjoyable. You’re given two combat buttons and depending on your character’s movement, placement, and the way you press and hold the buttons, you can kick, punch, knee, head butt, snap necks, and groin twist your way to satisfaction. Well, there’s no groin twisting; they had to leave something for the sequel right?

To add a cherry on top, Jason Bourne has multiple take downs (if this was Midway, we’d be calling them fatalities) at his arsenal. I’d say these alone are worth the price of admission. Who hasn’t daydreamed of breaking somebody’s wrist with a carefully placed “Hi-Ya!?” These take downs like smashing your enemy’s face through a window or throwing them off a moving semi-truck are readily available via the adrenalin meter. So you can choose to unleash your fury as soon as you get them or storing them and releasing a barrage of moves.

Sorry to say, the fighting does get repetitive. There’s a limit to how much white-boy punching one can tolerate. High Moon Studios tried to remedy this by introducing gun fights, car sequences, and reflex-testing timed events. Sadly, they failed to do so at a high standard. The camera’s focus while aiming is annoying and often times miscalculated. The reflex timing events are somewhat awkward and feel misplaced. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, let me explain. Remember in Super Punch-Out when Bald Bull would rush at you and you had to time exactly when to block? Well substitute Bald Bull with a flashing X and the block button with PRESS X!

Aside from the repetitive combat and irritatingly clumsy gun fights, the last protest I have is that at some point during the game you feel as if you’re watching the game instead of actually playing. Too many story interruptions, I say. At least the game isn’t terribly long (or difficult for that matter), so I guess that is some sort of consolation for the numerous cut-scenes.

What’s the result of all this? The Bourne Conspiracy is definitely worth a look. The negatives don’t outweigh the positives to the point of “bad game” labeling, but they are somewhat impactful. If you played the kickass, in-your-face demo, just imagine a full version of it. Nothing more, nothing less.

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