Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy

There are some people that would have you believe the Jason Bourne movies are the best thing to happen to action flicks since the '80s. There is another, apparently smaller group, who thinks they're depressingly personality free borefests with characters and action sequences as interchangeable as each film's name.

But hey, don't let that put you off. They say only a bad book makes a good movie and certainly there's never been any correlation between the quality of a film and its video game counterpart. Except technically this isn't a movie tie-in, but a companion to the soon-to-be-released home console game – although the actual plot for both is still based on the first film/book.

As confusing as that might be, the game actually makes a far better stab at re-telling the story than many other tie-ins, on mobile or otherwise. You probably still need to have seen the film to really understand what's going on, although in gameplay terms the explanation is fairly obvious: jump around some stock 2D levels and beat up an unending legion of hapless bad guys.

In terms of game mechanic this works very similarly to Vivendi's previous The Bourne Ultimatum game, which is to say it's a faintly Splinter Cell-style arcade adventure where you're encouraged to clamber around each of the platform based levels dispatching enemies with your super spy fight skills. There's relatively little stealth in it per se, but dropping down from the ceiling onto unaware goons and being rewarded with an instant kill is inarguably satisfying.

The generally excellent graphics don't hurt your enjoyment, either, being completely overhauled from Ultimatum so that they're smaller (partially solving the previous game's problem that enemies were on top of you before you even saw them) but better animated. The backgrounds are also extremely well detailed and the weather effects, although now verging on cliché, are still satisfyingly cinematic.

Although the game claims to use one-thumb controls, your opposable digit will be working at a furious rate all on its lonesome, since the game uses practically every button on the keypad. As well as jumping, crawling and rolling, you can also pick up objects and lob them at people (or in the case of the fire extinguisher set it off in their face first) and use one of several special moves which get unlocked as the game progresses.

The only let up for your quickly forming calluses is some simpler 'escape' levels, which although a touch too easy are short and well paced enough to be the game's true highlight. The in-car sections where you have to keep moving between lanes and shaking off bad guys from your roof are fun but the chases across the roof tops, where you have to time your jumps and rolls are particularly good.

Indeed, they highlight what continues to be the game's major problem: although perfectly well designed and executed, the main platform levels just aren't terribly enjoyable or interesting. And as they constitute the majority of the game, it's something of a crippling issue. Instant deaths abound and yet you still never really feel in serious danger, with your increasingly resentful trudge through the levels led by the vague hope that the next level isn't going to be like this one. Which, alas, it invariably is.