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When I was a kid the mini-series ruled television. Dramatic series simply didn't exist as they do today and for reasons that as an adult today I simply don't understand (but man was I enamored at the time), Richard Chamberlain starred in some of the best of them. Ok, I wasn't exactly a kid when The Bourne Identity hit and at a running time of 4 hours it was barely a mini-series but it piqued my interest enough to get me to read the novels. Amnesiac assassin, possible Carlos the Jackal, romantic involvement with other obvious mini-series actress Jaclyn Smith - it was a no brainer. The books were damned good, too.

Fast forward oh, 15 years and along comes this upstart writer/producer/director/actor by the name of Matt Damon - not known for his action films - and drop the whole Vietnam vet portion of the story, the Carlos the Jackal storyline, and about 6-10 other mini-plot lines that don't fit today's political climate and we have Jason Bourne reborn. Charismatic, attractive (ok, hot - sorry guys, I am a chick), instinctive, intelligent and cool - not at all the impassioned whiner that Chamberlain portrayed. Who wouldn't want to be this guy?

Rather than try to deal with the legacy left by so many definitions of Jason Bourne, High Moon have decided to take Bourne of most recent memory - the younger Matt Damon character - and work with the Ludlum estate to develop the backstory of the first film in the recent series, to explain what brought this ultimate soldier to breaking point and to give us all the chance to play some of the more memorable scenes from The Bourne Identity. Beginning with the perhaps the best-known scene of that film, the escape from the American Embassy, you learn what it means to be Bourne: to have his reflexes, speed and what the developers call the "Bourne Instinct" - that heightened awareness of your surroundings that makes it possible to use everything at your disposal.

The pacing at the Embassy, though a tutorial is rather intense. Yet it imparts both a feeling of the skill of Jason Bourne and the abilities that you as the player have at your disposal. Bourne's instinct is very spacial - he is aware of every item in his immediate surroundings but is also capable of surveying the landscape and remembering passageways, knowing what doors are opened or closed, which desks are flimsy cover and which are not.

While fighting in "the present", Bourne avoids the use of lethal force. You learn the rather simple control scheme of X and Y for light and heavy hit, A for block and then (when you're able) B to execute a takedown. For those who have seen the first film, the canonical example is when Bourne is asleep in the park and approached by the police; without thinking, he takes them down without thinking, but does not kill them. When fighting through the Embassy, as Bourne sees opportunities he uses the environment for takedowns - any part of the environment.

As Bourne lands blows on his opponents, his level of adrenaline builds, which is indicated on the UI. The adrenaline meter is marked with three graduations; when the meter is filled to the first mark or above, Bourne is able to spend adrenaline to execute a takedown. For our first example, we saw a mail cart used as a weapon — bash! Then we saw the mail cart again — crunch — and asked if it wasn't a scripted animation. Emmanuel Valdez, Creative Director, moved the next fight to a different area of the hall way and a doorjam was utilized to take out the next enemy.

"We went through and placed meta-tags on every item in the game which could be used for a takedown and developed animations for that item," Valdez explained.

There are a lot of items in the game and yet the animations are fluid and believable. Using Jeff Imada, the fight stunt coordinator from the film, they worked diligently to recreate the martial art style known as Kali, or Eskrima. Not only does this lend an air of believability to the combat but it furthers the continuity between game and film.

Some enemies will be more difficult than others, mini-bosses if you will. We watched Bourne fight an experienced Gunnery Sergeant. This man took a few takedowns to defeat as he was both strong and aware of his surroundings. As each combatant became injured there were visual cues - Bourne began to bleed first - then the Sergeant.

As Valdez was trading blows with the Sergeant he showed what would happen if the player didn't use some level of strategy and though button mashing or the same combos would work - the Sergeant learned. Too many left/right combos and he simply ducked and laid Bourne out. The AI is designed to learn the patterns of the player. It took a filing cabinet, whiteboard, and desk corner to take this man down. He wasn't giving up without a serious fight.

We also saw fights involving more than one opponent, and it was nice to see that while Bourne will close in on and concentrate on one enemy at the time, his mates won't just stand by and wait for Bourne to finish with one opponent before jumping in. The other enemies in the room will quite happy to punch, kick and otherwise antagonize Bourne, even when his back is turned. It's also possible to execute takedowns on up to three enemies at once, if you've built up enough adrenaline from previous fights to pull it off. (That's what the second and third graduations on the adrenaline meter are for.) When attempting one of these multi-person takedowns, you're given a quick-action sequence for each enemy in turn; it's generally possible to fail any of your takedown attempts without affecting the others, which is nice a touch.

This leads me onto a point about the quick-action sequences in general: we saw quite a lot of these in the demo version we were shown (they were rather more frequent than they will be in the full game), and in general, failing a quick-action sequence is a soft fail. Missing a button press might mean falling off the embassy to a certain doom — but you'll restart back on the same ledge, not half a level ago at the previous checkpoint.

Later, we saw a gameplay sequence set in the bowels of Zurich airport, with Bourne pursing a prisoner along an industrial train route, demonstrating his gunplay skills in a tight underground environment. This was something of a run-and-gun set-piece, with Bourne ducking in and out of cover, dodging trains (which were very efficient at clearing bodies away) and pursuing his quarry. As a gun-centric area, this sequence had a different flavor than the other sequences we were shown, as this was Bourne the assassin not Bourne the converted. But it showed a different side of the character and certainly looked like fun.

Conspiracy is the story of how Bourne became the man with no memory, why he snapped. Though we get to play some of the more iconic scenes from The Bourne Identity (including the Mini Cooper car chase through Paris) it is the flashbacks that tell the story of the man that comes to be. Deadly force is what this man was trained to use on any target any time. The Instinct exists - he simply knows what is destructible or explosive; the skills are intact - he can switch sides to aim more accurately, he uses his environment to solve problems; but the compunction to avoid deadly force has not appeared. It is what happens in the 48 hours prior to waking up near death in the ocean - why does he never have the right support? Or the correct intel? Where is the necessary extraction? These are the questions and answers that bring Jason Bourne to the point we know him in the film trilogy today.

Having read the novels, watched the original films and the later, I can honestly say this is the best use of an IP I have seen in the game space. It doesn't seek to recreate the vision of another; nor does it seek to "fix" what High Moon may or may not see as lacking. Instead, it seeks to further what is already a strong character and story into something more. You need not have seen the films to enjoy The Bourne Conspiracy, but if you have, the game will simply add to that experience. Due to launch in June of this year, a consumer demo (the same content as we saw in this press preview) is scheduled to launch on Xbox 360 on May 5 in the US (May 8 in the EU) and on May 18 on PS3 (May 21 in the EU). I'll be chomping at the bit until that time to get my hands on it. Intrigue, mystery, character development, kick-ass combat, car racing and a great IP to boot - if that doesn't satisfy my needs in a game, I need to re-examine my definition of fun.