Robert Ludlums die Bourne Verschwörung

Wenn Sie Spion-Thriller lieben, sind Wahrscheinlichkeiten Sie haben gehört vermutlich von Robert Ludlums Bourne Romane, populär gebildet mit den Hollywood Anpassungen, die matten Damon als Jason Bourne starring sind. Der Brunnen, der choreografiert wurden und der brutale geschilderte Hand-zuhandkampf waren der Stempel der Filme, und Spielverleger Sierra und Entwickler hohe Mond-Studios haben eine ausgezeichnete Arbeit erledigt, die diese Adrenaline-gefüllte Tätigkeit, fast zum Punkt gefangennimmt, in dem Sie wie Sie neu erstellen Szenen vom Film fühlen. Verschwörung folgt lose der Tätigkeit von Die Bourne Identität. Bourne wird aus dem Mittelmeer gefischt, sein gegangenes Gedächtnis heraus, und Sie fangen an, in seine Schritte zu zu folgen herausfinden, warum so viele Leute versuchen, ihn zu töten. Zwischen, werden Sie zu etwas von seinem früh Großtaten genommen, während Bourne während der Geschichte rückseitig blitzt.

Wie mit den Filmen, ist der Hauptfokus des Kampfes Hand-zuhand. Und gerade wie die Filme, ist es schnell-geschritten und brutal. Das Kampfsystem ist ziemlich einfach; Sie haben nur ein Licht und schwerer Angriff, ein Block und vaunted herunternehmen. Sie haben auch den „Bourne Instinkt,“, dem Sie pflegen, Weise Punkte, spezielle Einzelteile und Feinde zu finden. Timing and strategy are critical, as each opponent will have a different fighting style. As you successfully strike your opponent, you charge up your adrenaline, which will allow you to do a take down move. These moves are entertaining to watch, as Bourne uses whatever is at his disposal to put a hurtin’ on his opponent, whether it’s slamming a head on a desk or smashing his face in with a fire extinguisher. Charge up enough adrenaline and you can take down multiple foes at once. The funnest boss fight is a flashback mission where you need to eliminate a target, which requires you to chase your target through an airport, dodging trains in a subway, and then finally fighting him in the cargo hold of a transport plane. You also have a variety of quick-reaction, timed button maneuvers, especially when fighting the tougher boss characters. Don’t think you’ll get off easy being conservative either. Some levels have a time limit, forcing you to be ultra-aggressive to make it through. One of the toughest sequences you’ll is fighting a very tough boss in a burning barn, which you’ll need to do it in two minutes before the it collapses on you.

There’s also a fair bit of gun play. Nothing groundbreaking here, but it will satisfy your craving for shooting up a room full of bad guys. You’re allowed two weapons (pistol and assault rifle/shotgun) and have the standard duck and cover elements, ala Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Certain types of cover are destructible, such as wooden boxes, so you can whittle away at them in order to get at your target. The adrenaline concept also carries over during gunfights; accumulate enough and you can do a take down shot. It’s nothing spectacular, just a guaranteed kill.

Graphically, Bourne Conspiracy has done a excellent job recreating the Bourne look and feel represented in the films. As you deliver (and take) your beatings, you can see your face steadily become battered and bloody. The sound, music, and voice acting are well done, capturing the heart pounding feeling you experience in the movies. You’ll even be treated with a track from techno legend Paul Oakenfold and Cee-Lo Green of Gnarls Barkley at the end of the game. One low point of the game is the car chase sequence. It seems like it was slapped together from source code from Crazy Taxi and is quite ridiculous. There was also the occasional awkward camera angle, and overall it was too short. I managed to beat the game in about five hours on normal difficulty. Which is a shame, because I desperately wanted to play through The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. I’ll guess I’ll just have to wait for the sequel.

Bus Driver [Indiescene]

All racing games are, ultimately, the same. Drive a route quickly. There are no surprises and very little originality, and then there’s Bus Driver, 

More akin to a flight simulator than a racing game, Bus Driver sees you driving a bus across a nicely detailed city, picking up and dropping off passengers.  When I first began playing it I cried aloud: “It’s Crazy Taxi on a bus!”  That comparison is only partly apt.  You do indeed pick up and drop off fares, but the similarities end there.  The game is divided into “missions” where you run a certain route in predetermined weather conditions (you don’t know stress until you’ve driven a bus in heavy snow.)  Bus Driver doesn’t have the spontaneity and mayhem of Crazy Taxi. It does, however, have game-play elements that you won’t find elsewhere.

First, you are driving a bus, and it feels right.  It handles like a bus.  It’s a slow, lumbering pig.  It has a huge amount of momentum, and takes a long time to get up to speed, to stop, and has a huge turning radius.  If nothing else, the game may increase your sympathy for city bus drivers.  Second, the game is a bit like an egg race.  By this I mean that if you stomp on the brakes too quickly, your passengers will become upset, and you’ll lose points.  Stomping on the brakes when no one is in the bus results in no penalty, but those situations are few and far between.

You also gain (or lose) points for obeying (or breaking) traffic laws.  Use a turn signal before changing lanes, get 10 points; randomly change lanes without signaling, lose 100.  Similar rules apply for stopping at (or running) red lights.  Collisions result in a hefty penalty.  

You drive through a fictional European city with varied environments as well as varied weather conditions.  Traffic is a constant hazard, and the clock will constantly tick away the seconds, reminding you of your inadequacies as a driver.  The controls are keyboard-based. I eventually settled on using my left hand to steer and my right hand to control the turn signals, flashers, and doors.  One annoyance is that there’s no mouse control even on the menu screens.

There are a few missed opportunities here.  It seems to me that one of the most interesting aspects of being a bus driver isn’t just the driving, but interacting with the passengers.  It would have been amusing for the customers to have a little more color — “Uh oh, here’s that group of drunk Danish football fans again.”  But this is a nitpick.  The game makes no excuses for being purely about driving, so I can’t be too upset about that. The lack of a tutorial gave me about 1 minute of angst when I first started playing, which is 1 minute too much.

Bus Driver is a charming game, strangely paced, almost languid, but I enjoyed its attention to detail and approachable controls. It’s rare that a driving game is able to surprise me in any way, and Bus Driver surprised me in several.  If you enjoy simulators, you should give it a look.  A demo is available at the publisher’s web site.