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    Enter the Matrix

    Game » consists of 9 releases. Released May 15, 2003

    A third-person action game which intertwines the stories of The Animatrix, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.

    sbym's Enter the Matrix (PlayStation 2) review

    Avatar image for sbym

    Of all the licenses to drop the ball on...

    In all the history of video games, there have been few movie licenses more fitting to make the translation than The Matrix franchise. It's got it all: World-wide popularity? Check. Name recognition? Check. Obscene budget? Check. Super powerful protagonist? Check. Super powerful enemies? Check. The ability to run faster and jump farther than you ever could in real life? Check. Superman-style flying? Check. Phenomenal car chase sequences? Check. Dazzling special effects? Check. Spectacular hand-to-hand martial arts combat? Check. Classic, heart-pounding gunplay? Double check.

    How could it have gone so very wrong? They practically had a guaranteed winner handed to them, and somehow botched it all... Disappointment? Check.

    Enter The Matrix is essentially a third-person action game in the vein of, well, every other game of its kind. This in itself is not a bad thing. Sure, it isn't exactly new or ground-breaking, but it makes perfect sense. What the Hell else would a game based on these movies be, a MMORPG? Eh, bad example.

    During the course of the game you'll be playing one of two rather minor characters from the movie sequels, either Niobe or Ghost in a story that runs alongside the events of The Matrix Reloaded. Depending on who you decide to play as, there will be slight differences in some parts of the main game. The major difference is that in vehicle sequences, Niobe will be the driver, whereas Ghost is the gunner. Neither style is executed all that well, so you won't really be missing out on all that much if you only play as one character. The other change is in cutscenes, I won't spoil anything for you but suffice it to say that the differences aren't all that big between both characters and aside from the aforementioned vehicle segments they play identically.

    The hand-to-hand combat itself isn't absolutely terrible, but it just feels like it wasn't properly tweaked and refined. The bullet time effect is rarely if ever needed during fisticuffs, other than to get a look at some of the animations. The enemies are just so easy to take down that it pretty much defeats the purpose of having super powerful characters, it takes next to no effort to clear out a room full of gun-toting security guards, all firing at you simultaneously, with a couple of button presses. Due to the animation of the characters attacks, it's not rare to see your attacks not really connect with the enemies, yet still seem to work. When it came down to it, things would get so tedious that I eventually just started doing the same two moves over and over again throughout the game. This entailed either running directly towards whatever guards happened to be standing in my way and doing a flying jump-kick directly to the head (well, the game registered it as a kick to the head) and shooting them while they lied on the ground, or disarming them and giving a swift kick to the ribs. This isn't to say that I wasn't able to pull off any of the combos, I just didn't ever feel it was worth the extra effort save once each to see what they looked like. The camera also tends to move around at will while in the middle of combat, often times swinging straight through walls in many of the more cramped areas of the levels. I don't even need to tell you how annoying this is.

    Gunplay is handled in a similar fashion, and is also rather hit-or-miss (no pun intended). While running around you can enter bullet time to cartwheel off of walls and dive about while blasting away and pretty much end up with the same results as carefully aiming and taking well-placed shots. Ammo and weapons are so plentiful that it eliminates the need to play intelligently. What really tends to get me here is that bullet time isn't handled nearly as good as it was in Max Payne, a game that was released quite a bit before Enter The Matrix. It just seems odd that the actual Matrix game doesn't do bullet time all that well.

    Now, the shoddy hand-to-hand combat and gunplay are enough themselves to make Enter The Matrix a rather mediocre experience. But what really brings this game down is the level design. Levels drag on for far too long and are all fairly similar, whether you're running through airports, sewers, or office buildings. Room, corridor, stairs. Wash, rinse, repeat. And with such repetitive gameplay, having such lengthy areas to play through just becomes a chore before long. The vehicle segments add a slight change of pace to the game, but they are handled so poorly that I was actually relieved to get back to an on-foot level. The word best-fit to describe it all is "lazy."

    Visually the game is a mixed bag. The characters tend to look fairly close to their on-screen counterparts, but the areas in which they dwell are bland as bland can be. Levels are sparsely decorated with little more than a few empty desks here & there, or in the case of some later levels, lots of generators and the such. Everything is displayed through a green filter which can make things look a bit more washed-out than they otherwise would, but it matches the movies at least. This may be a blessing in disguise however, as most of the textures themselves aren't particularly attractive. The cars and SUVs during driving sections tend to be really quite blocky and unattractive, and upon explosion do little more than immediately turn into what appears to be a burning chunk of charcoal and fall to the side. Don't even get me started on the animations, they are stiff and just plain akward.

    I don't want to spoil anything so I'll just say that the live-action cutscenes in the game are on-par with the movies themselves. While you won't get any cool stuff like the gunfights from the movies here, it's quite obvious they didn't half-ass them. Often times it seems when things like this are done for a movie-licensed game they are thrown together with none of the care or production of the base-material. This is thankfully not the case here.

    Sound on the other hand ends up being a disaster, audio-bugs abound throughout, most notably on the in-game cutscenes. Vocal tracks tend to play twice about a second apart from each other, making it difficult to tell what the Hell anyone is saying. I really don't see how they missed this unless the developers simply never watched the cutscenes after making them, it's that bad. The music is good, that is of course if you enjoyed the movie scores. I find them to add to whatever tension and sense of danger there is in the action myself. However, since many of the tunes are simple variations of each other they can get old by the time you're finished with the main game.

    Bonuses in Enter The Matrix include a coma-inducing "hacking" mini game used to unlock secrets and cheats, and a two-player fighting game. The fighting game is good for a couple of turns but soon grows boring. I can't say I'll ever feel bad if I never get to play it again.

    When it comes down to it, Enter The Matrix is a huge letdown. Shiny had everything it could possibly need to make an excellent and memorable game, and completely and utterly made no good use of it. If you are a Matrix fanatic and for some reason have not played this game I suggest at most renting it. The only way I could see purchasing this game would be if the price were below that of a mere rental. You'll get everything you need or want out of just a couple days, and afterwards likely wonder why you even spent that much time. I know I did.

    Other reviews for Enter the Matrix (PlayStation 2)

      A game for die hard Matrix fans 0

      Enter the Matrix is a side story to the movies the Matrix reloaded and the Matrix revolutions. The story follows the missions of Niobe and Ghost. You choose one of these two people to play the game as. You get different games with each one but mostly just going a other way to finish the task in hand. Some level are different where you ether drive (play as Niobe) or shoot (play as Ghost). The story doesn’t add too much to the story from the movies but die hard fan of the movies will love it.The g...

      0 out of 0 found this review helpful.

      Wait, so this game will kill me!? 0

      Enter the Matrix is based on the movie trilogy were you go about an online world killing agents and basicly running about like a lunatic. It, however, does not follow the movies guidelines, instead of take control of Neo or one of the main characters you instead take the role of one of the two back playing characters that didn't feature much in the story.The game has all the elements you would expect from the Matrix, like flashy-jumpy-spinny move and umm...elbow drops, but the annoying bit is yo...

      0 out of 1 found this review helpful.

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