The combat system itself works rather well - reminding us, in a more solid and gritty way, of the combat in Yu Suzuki' s cult classic Shenmue. The basic fight mechanism works nicely enough, with punching, kicking and blocking all flowing nicely, but it' s all broken up by the incredibly satisfying takedowns - quick-time events which call for swift button presses in time with on-screen cues in order to cripple your unfortunate foes.

Moreover, The Bourne Conspiracy passes one of the key tests for quality in a movie-licensed game, in that it' s not actually coming out remotely near to the movie. Nothing screams shovelware like a tie-in game that launches alongside a film; built to an incredibly short schedule, with an eye to release windows rather than game quality, they' re almost uniformly awful (for example, last Friday' s Jumper: Griffin' s Story, which we suspiciously haven' t been sent). The Bourne Conspiracy, by comparison, is appearing significantly after the last film in the cinematic trilogy disappeared from multiplexes. That' s a good sign.

The beating heart of this game, however, is the fighting - a hand-to-hand combat system that' s brutal, bloody and given additional spice by Bourne' s ability to use his environment to perform bone-crunching, eye-watering takedown movies on his foes. Frequently, combat is a group affair, with Bourne taking on three or four henchmen at once - more high-powered takedowns allow him to hammer as many as three hapless bad guys simultaneously using stylish martial arts movies.

Valdez is something of a veteran of fighting games, having previously worked on the Ready 2 Rumble boxing series. For The Bourne Conspiracy, however, he called in the best professional help that Hollywood has to offer - the services of legendary fight choreographer and stunt co-ordinator Jeff Imada, who was visionary behind the fight sequences in the Bourne movies (and in almost every other action movie you care to name, frankly, with an IMDB credit list longer than a gorilla' s arms).