I've been playing this demo on 360 for about an hour and it's looking like it could deliver. If you haven't been keeping track, it essentially recreates major events of the first in the Bourne film trilogy, adding some original missions in the form of flashbacks to flesh out Bourne's career as an assassin.

Combat, being the focus of the game, works very well. In hand-to-hand, you'll use X and Y buttons to string together three-hit combos and hold A to block. The combos aren't anything difficult to pull off though the enemies do block pretty effectively even on the mid-range difficulty level. To counteract enemy blocking, a kick move can be performed by holding either X or Y. Gunplay is prevalent as well, working entirely in free-aim. There doesn't seem to be much of an auto-aim system. If it's there, it works seamlessly enough that I didn't notice it. Moving Bourne in close on an armed enemy will cause him to disarm the opponent and move instantly into hand-to-hand.





Bourne has a meter called "Adrenaline" that builds up as you land hits on enemies. This seems to be predominately used to end combat sequences (or finish them before they've begun) with a takedown by pressing the B button. Takedowns are pretty goddamn awesome, as they not only give you a quick cinematic of Bourne beating the ever-loving crap out of someone, but they're environmentally relevant. Performing a takedown near a flashing item will integrate its use into the attack, while simply being located in various areas of an environment will result in different takedowns using walls, tables, whatever happens to be there. Takedowns also work while running to take an enemy by surprise or with guns which can eliminate two enemies at once.

Another use for Adrenaline is Bourne Instinct, which comes in very handy for the running about bits. Hitting the Y button will make the screen tinge blue and give you directional markers or points of interest on the radar in the corner of the screen. Since the sprinting areas (in the demo, at least) all seem to have timers on them, having a mechanic to keep from getting lost that isn't entirely reliant on trial-and-error is a nice feature.





In the midst of combat and cinematics, the game makes use of quick action events, as is so common in many action games these days. Thankfully, the devs have had the foresight to include a sound effect which chimes in right before one of these appears, which helps prevent that ever so annoying problem of being caught completely off guard during a cinematic.

The demo has three levels. The first has you escaping the American Embassy in Zurich. It shows off the environment and your interactivity with them fairly well. Lots of sprinting, hand-to-hand combat and a little bit of stealth. The second introduces you to guns with one of the new flashback missions featuring a convict attempting to escape on a cargo plane. The third is a driving level through the streets of Paris. This last one is incredibly brief and really only serves to introduce the driving mechanics, which work well enough but it seems like another example of a dev trying to throw everything except the kitchen sink into what would otherwise be a very tight and entertaining experience (High Moon did this also in their previous title, Darkwatch, with a truly horrible arena-style driving level).





There are a couple of other issues. The kick maneuver can be a bit tricky to pull off. Sometimes it doesn't seem to trigger at all and there's no real indication of how long you have to hold the button for it to be performed. While the graphics look excellent, the death animation is just depressing. Bourne flops to the ground with a blank, painless expression on his face, like an android that has just been switched off, and it totally takes you out of the experience. And there's no Matt Damon providing voice or likeness, which may or may not be a negative for you.

It looks promising. The combat is highly entertaining to perform and it looks great. When I heard that High Moon was delaying the release of this title from it's previously planned coincidence with The Bourne Ultimatum, I was thoroughly impressed by a dev taking the time to produce a quality game instead of just cashing in on a popular license. Now they appear to be coming through.

The demo is available now on XBox Live and will be arriving Thursday, May 8th for PSN.