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The Bourne Conspiracy, the game based on the massively successful action suspense movie franchise, is in UK stores right now. We caught up with the game's director Emmanuel Valdez and lead designer Rory McGuire to talk Matt Damon, US reviews and why a Wii version might be a bad idea.
VideoGamer.com: How does the game compare with the films and books in terms of the story?
AdvertisementEmmanuel Valdez: Bourne Conspiracy doesn't exist obviously in the five books that have been written or three movies. We've taken from the main story points and action moments from the Bourne Identity movie and we've created original back story through flashback missions in game, where Jason Bourne remembers when he was a Treadstone agent.
VideoGamer.com: The game's been out in the States for a bit. What's your opinion of the critical reception the game has received from US reviews?
EV: Very pleased with it. Most of the reviews that I've read have been very fair. We agree with a lot of the points good and bad. So no real surprises.
Rory McGuire: The reviews were really positive. There have been a few that I've disagreed with. That's all good. You'll always have that when you release a game. They've been very positive.
VideoGamer.com: From our time with the game, we most enjoyed the hand to hand combat, which really captures what the films are all about. What were the challenges you experienced creating that?
EV: There's a lot of big challenges. One of them is the fact that we were really inspired by the looks of the movie of course. There was a particular style of martial arts called Kali with a little bit of Jeet Kune Do and the way we were able to overcome that was we hired Jeff Imada, who was the fight choreography on the movies. So with that collaboration we feel we've achieved the visual style. The other challenge was basically the gameplay. The controls and what we enabled players to do and experience in the game. Not only did we want them to look like they fought like Jason Bourne but they had to feel like Jason Bourne when they were fighting. To marry the two together was a huge challenge.
VideoGamer.com: What do you guys think of quick time events, because there's quite a lot of them in the game? Are there too many?
RM: The general idea we took with the Quick Actions was that through Quick Actions you're able to do things, in sort of moments where you become Bourne. We try to give a warning to the players, there's a sound that plays to indicate that they're coming. It's essentially an extension of being hyper aware, that hyper awareness of Bourne. We let you do things we wouldn't let you do otherwise - diving under a gate as an explosion rockets past you and all these crazy things. Without them it would be less of a game so I definitely think it benefits overall.
VideoGamer.com: What's happening next? Obviously you've got another couple of films to play with. Would you like to make another Bourne game?
EV: That would be awesome! We would enjoy the opportunity of creating another Bourne game, especially since we invested so much time on this game and really felt that we established a franchise here.
VideoGamer.com: There's no PC or Wii version of Bourne Conspiracy. Could it come to PC and Wii?
EV: We talked about it. It's more or less our publisher's decision on the platforms we develop for. Everyone agrees that something like the Wii would be somewhat of a challenge with the current design of the game. But I think we would come up with some great ideas if we were approached to develop for those platforms.
RM: Ultimately the decision's up to Sierra.
VideoGamer.com: But you guys wouldn't say no if they asked you to do a Wii version?
EV: Well imagine doing take downs with the Wii controller (laughs). I think there would be a lot of TV sets destroyed out there, people getting hurt!
RM: In a good way!
EV: In a fun way!
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