What happened if you made a game from a licensed movie years after the film was released? Would fans of the film swing by and give it a shot for nostalgia’s sake, hoping to relive their past enjoyment? Could the game be better than other movie-based properties due to the freedom granted by not having to release day-and-date with its silver-screen counterpart? Does having the folks who helped make the movies work on the game make it any more believable? These are all questions High Moon set to answer when it created The Bourne Conspiracy.

Conspiracy is based on the films, which are in turn based on the books written by Robert Ludlum. You play as Jason Bourne, an amnesiac who quickly discovers he is fluent in a dozen languages and knows how to fight in a manner befitting a Shaolin warrior. Conspiracy picks up at roughly the same point as the first movie, The Bourne Identity, though it fills in a little of the backstory of the events leading up to the opening of the film. Bourne takes part in an aborted assassination mission, and ends up shot and floating in the ocean, left for dead. Luckily for him, a fishing boat happens by and scoops him out of the water, patches him up, and sends him on his way to try and figure out who he is and why someone wants him dead.

It would have been sufficient for the game to simply follow the arc of the first film, but the development team wanted more, so a good chunk of the levels are flashbacks of Jason back when he was still a perfectly functional $30 million weapon. These flashback missions are placed expertly, and give even diehard fans of the films a nice break from the storyline to relive some of Jason’s more badass moments.

Since the Bourne movies are action flicks, the game really has to keep the same pace, forcing you into constant action and keeping you on your toes throughout. In that sense, there is a lot of fighting and a lot of gunplay thrown your way throughout the adventure. The fighting is shallow yet impressive, while the shooting mechanics are nearly broken.

You’ll find at several moments throughout Conspiracy that you are matched up against one or more enemies for a bit of hand-to-hand action. It’s worth noting here that all the fisticuffs look quite impressive, as they were all choreographed by the same individual who staged the fights in the films. Using the square and triangle buttons to punch and kick, and the X button to block, Bourne must beat his foe into submission before he himself is drained of his energy. Enemies are fairly smart, and after you land a couple combos they’ll likely start blocking more regularly and generally making it harder for you to connect with a blow. Unfortunately, due to the heavily restricted combo system, it’s hard to find ways to break past their defenses. Due to the fact that you can only throw three-punch combos, and that there are only two buttons used for attacking, you are limited to nine total combinations of attacks. A game that is going for more of a smart fighting system rather than a button-mashing brawler needs a deeper combo system to keep things from becoming stale and boring.