Bourne or Bond? Bond or Bourne? It’s a question that every would-be secret agent has probably asked themselves countless times. Bond has the gadgets and the women whilst Bourne has all the moves. It’s a bold decision. One thing Bond does have over Jason Bourne is that his memory is still intact, something which seems to elude Bourne and forms the basis of his action packed and rather fine movies.

The game itself is a side scrolling shooter and beat-em-up which follows the story of the movie, The Bourne Ultimatum, and puts you in the shoes of the man of the moment as he punches and kicks his way through various locations from Moscow to London, eliminating the enemies who stand in his way. As you progress there are a variety of weapons to collect and use against those who oppose you, and some nifty rolling moves to master. The game moves at pace and you have a limited time to run through each level and get to the end, destroying your enemies before they destroy you.

In addition to the beat-em-up action there are some fairly run of the mill bike riding levels which require the player to navigate the obstacles in the way and get to the end in the allotted time. Even though the bike levels try and add some variety to proceedings they offer little in the way of real challenge and certainly aren’t as satisfying as the other levels.

The game plays smoothly and at a canter with non-stop action all the way. There are some nice animated touches, in particular the character movement and the handling of the pump-action shotgun. The backgrounds are detailed and attractive but the characters themselves look slightly bland in comparison.

The sound, if initially irritating to begin with, does compliment the frantic gameplay very well. The addition of some sound affects would have enhanced the gameplay further still and their omission is a disappointment.

The game does suffer from a lack of variety with the same limited punching and kicking moves being used throughout and the gameplay not really developing much from level to level. Having said that the game fundamentally is simple but fun with three levels of difficulty (the hard difficulty level being unlocked on completion of the game on ‘normal’) offering some decent challenge.

Experienced game players however, probably won’t take long to complete the game and become unsatisfied with its longevity.

The Bourne Ultimatum is a fairly no-frills game which provides some enjoyable quick-fix gaming but lacks the depth or variety to keep the hardcore gamer satisfied.

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