Adrenaline junkies desperate for some high speed thrills should dig Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy. Sierra's high-octane video game, based on the popular fiction, casts you as Jason Bourne, a wickedly efficient killer on the run from well-armed soldiers and various bad guys. No, it doesn't feature the film's star Matt Damon, but his absence doesn't seem to matter. That's because this is one hell of a game, not the most polished, but certainly brutal and in your face. If you love intense chases, wild firefights and brutal hand-to-hand combat, this over the top action adventure extravaganza is just the game you need.

At its best, The Bourne Conspiracy just won't sit still and is content to push you into numerous action sequences, one after the other. One second, you mix it up with some unarmed guards. The next, you desperately escape a bunch of military dudes carrying automatic weapons, slide underneath a gate, break some guy's face, dodge sniper fire, navigate your way between buildings via rope, dodge more snipers and push another dude's head into an electrical box, and all this happens within the first 10 minutes. From there, you'll dodge trains, kills lots of evildoers with an automatic rifle, hit an enemy in the face with his own nightstick, blow up some explosive barrels, sneak onto a plane, beat up some more guards and then battle an escaped con. Survive all that and you get to grab a parachute and escape the unmanned aircraft before it crashes into the mountains. Then you get to go on a high-speed chase in a Beetle with the cops on your tail, plowing through some store windows, hitting a jump and causing multiple accidents. Whew. Time to breathe.

While on the run, you have the option of using Jason's Bourne Instinct. This special ability, which lasts a short time, lets you see objectives and enemies on the game's map, located on the bottom right corner. You're free to ignore it, but doing so will probably result in your untimely demise. Luckily, the checkpoints appear evenly placed, so you can hop back into the action with minimal back tracking.

Whenever you fight someone hand-to-hand, the game transitions from an over the shoulder perspective to something that almost resembles a fighting game such as Dead or Alive, with your enemy on the left and you on the right, though the camera flies around to display different angles. Pressing X and Y causes you to execute various punches, and mashing them at the same time allows Jason to perform combos. Successfully land these moves and you'll fill an energy bar that allows you to do takedowns, brutal special moves in which you grab your opponent and do all sorts of nasty things to him depending on where you are in the environment. Press B near a window and Jason will throw his adversary through the glass. Press it near an electrical box and he'll kick him into it, sending waves of electricity coursing through his body. There's just a plethora of things to do, such as kicking a guy through a white board, bashing his cranium into a piece of stone or the aforementioned nightstick move. Bottom line, they kick ass.

They also happen during gunplay. Hitting B causes Jason to do an instant kill with whatever weapon he possesses. Otherwise, Bourne Conspiracy plays similarly to other third person shooters, with Jason ducking behind cover and scoring headshots or hitting explosive barrels to clear a room full of bad guys. With that said, developer High Moon doesn't let you stare down the sights of a gun by pressing the left trigger, a puzzling decision that forces you to both aim and fire with just the right analog stick. This proves especially annoying while behind cover. Instead of popping out and targeting the nearest enemy, Jason looks in another direction, which lets his adversaries score some cheap hits.

We're also disappointed with the frantic transition that occurs whenever Jason comes too close to an enemy. Instead of being able to walk up to someone and shoot him, the game automatically switches to a scene where Jason disarms his opponent en route to a fistfight. Even worse, the game forces you to defeat your enemy this way. You can't just pull out a weapon mid fight and unload a clip, nor can you escape and run for cover while the other enemies open fire. What happens is you take bullets to the back while punching some bozo and it sucks.

As for driving, you accelerate with the right trigger and brake with the left, which are the standard controls for most racing games. It seems like you'll have plenty of opportunities to cause havoc in a vehicle, if the recently released Xbox Live demo is any indication. And to make sure you don't screw up too badly, on-screen arrows that tell you where to go, probably not the epitome of quality design, but for a game that moves this fast, we don't mind some valuable hand holding.

Despite our complaints, we can't wait for this game. Sure, The Bourne Conspiracy isn't the ultimate action bonanza, but we like the hardcore melee attacks, the gunplay is passable and we're desperate for a movie-based game that doesn't suck. Unless someone royally screws up, this could be the one shining jewel amongst a pile of crap on June 3.

Related Links

Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy Game Guide