The Bourne Conspiracy (and why I couldn’t be arsed with it)

When I decide to review a game, I either start off approaching it with an odd cocktail or cynicism and enthusiasm or the game sits on my desk mocking me while I’m forced into spending my evenings watching soaps. In the case of the latter, I find myself taking the first opportunity to take the game around out back and then beating it to within an inch of its life, then objectifying whatever’s left. At least that’s what I like to think I do.

In the case of The Bourne Conspiracy, I knew that if this game had a mouth, it’d be screaming all sorts of abuse and heckling me for ignoring to death for no apparent reason. Well, I guess the best logical reason I could fathom was that I’d rediscovered how much fun it is to launch Niko off the not-empire-state-building on GTA IV. Either way, Bourne had been sitting there untouched and unloved for almost a week when I realised I had to bring it back in two days and that you’re all expecting me to tell you about it.

Well, having done a few minutes of research I found that pretty much everyone had declared it exactly average; while a mate of mine loved the combat, but wouldn’t really talk about anything else. It’s about time I should point out that despite objections from, well, everyone, I haven’t seen a single Bourne movie, nor have I felt the need to spin my eyeballs out of their sockets by reading the books. I think I saw the tiniest bit of the car chase to the soundtwack of Jonathan Woss. Ignoring the fact that it’s a series of movies that provides (all together, kids!) Matt Damon with lots of cash, I will forever dismiss Bourne as a dangerously American take on Bond. I mean, come on, the name just showcases the lack of imagination.

“This is my spy thriller, the main character is Ja-uh” (with the entire room staring at him) “Ja-uh-son… yeah, Jason! Jason Bo-uh…. Uh, uh, Bour-ne? Yeah, Jason Bourne and not at all derived from James Bond. Shit.”

I know, I know, before you start bombarding me with man-love for the Bourne movies, they’re nothing like Bond movies. Bond is suave and English. Bourne is an American killing machine with amnesia. Frankly, the only American killing machines I have time for are Stan Smith and Chuck Norris. I digress, I’m supposed to be talking about the game, not why I feel such apathy for the movies.

I can’t think of all that much to say about the Bourne game, and I’m sure that playing it for more than 2 hours wouldn’t have blessed me with any stronger feelings or indeed any other lasting impressions. Honestly, I’ve had more memorably experiences waiting for a bus on a Sunday. I’ve had stronger feelings for Rivita, in fact, I’d rather partake in a Rivita campaign than play the Bourne game any more.

The problem is that it’s just so bland. Sure, the hand to hand combat is fast and vicious, but the brief blip of adrenalin it provides wears off as soon as you stop mashing buttons. While playing it, all I could think of was Jean-luc Picard saying “He just kept talking and talking in one long incredibly unbroken sentence moving from topic to topic so that no one had a chance to interrupt it was really quite hypnotic”. Oddly enough, that provided me with more entertainment than Bourne, but that said my concentration wouldn’t differentiate the game from the movie and refused to join me for longer than about 4 seconds. A small list of things that I got thinking about while playing Bourne were:
- Is it worth staying on a pre-pay mobile phone?
- Do I get broadband with Sky, which I’ll never really watch, or get it with a pay monthly phone?
- Can Steven Hawking get an erection?
- Do cartoon characters have feelings?
- Why does one of my cats have eyebrows and the other doesn’t?

Eventually this list spiralled uncontrollably into the world of time travel, mountain bikes, guitars and John Rambo. I even tidied my room to avoid playing Bourne. Then I changed the light in the bathroom.

The Bourne game isn’t remotely memorable, it is ridiculously linear, it’s stuffed with so many quick-time events that I’d guess if it had bollocks, they would have burst in a horrible explosion of testicles, blood and random button presses. That said, it got off on the right foot. Bourne gets up, answers a phone, then you walk through a “busy” street stalking some terrorist or spy (whatever, I told you it wasn’t memorable). Along the way you break the faces of a few goons, find your target then introduce him to a few railings and your fists – which in the interests of holding my attention I named Joe Stevens and Leonardo.

Then it all swiftly goes down the shitter when Jason needs prompting to hide from a bomb behind some form of bench. This started a long series of sighs. The next came when I was told to go somewhere with a timer in the corner. This is usually something I dislike, but especially so in this situation, because no one told me where “somewhere” was and I’d have to have a few fights on the way there. Ugh. Then I found myself in some harbour at night. Surrounded by very similar looking black soldiers with guns. Ugh. What I thought would be the last piss take was being attacked by a helicopter whether I was or wasn’t in cover, so I just had to leg it to my destination (again with no real indication as to where the fuck it was). When I got there I had to have a big fight with a big man, then run away and get shot at by a helicopter a few more times. After a very, very repetitive sequence of jumping over railings which gave me an idea of what a Hollywood movie based on the Olympic games would be like. I found myself on a small boat.

When I say small, I mean the deck was conveniently just big enough to have another fight in, while there didn’t really seem to be enough room for an engine or any form of crew, come to think of it. One very boring fight later I gave up and carried on exploding on GTA, with only one thing following me through this experience: these are the same people working on the Ghost Busters game, and I don’t want to hate Dan Aykroyd.

All I can really recommend about the Bourne game is the pen light thingy you get with the special edition, because it’s a damn sight more entertaining than the game itself.

I didn’t even want to review this game at all, I wanted to play Battlefield Bad Company but I wasn’t allowed to. There’s no point in reviewing Smash Bros. Brawl, because you’ll like it if you like Melee, and you wont if you didn’t. In theory I could decided to be a normal human being for a few months while nothing other than Too Human comes out, but I’ve been becoming increasingly aware of how much hate I have for my fellow man and his desire to either get in my way or annoy the living shit out of me in impressively short times. Some people say I’m becoming too antisocial, and I can’t judge those people too much because their twisted remains keep my slippers company under my bed.
(Footnote: After finishing this, I was about to go back over what I’d written and try spicing it up a bit more, but sweet zombie Jesus, I’ve been filled with so much apathy by this game I can’t even bring myself to torture it).