Enter the Matrix (PC)

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• 5 stars

  Jameson Thottam staying away from the Matrix

  by jameson thottam on June 16, 2006

  Pros: Great base of a movie genre and nice idea ^ Jameson Thottam ^

  Cons: Lousy development..no good story...and just plain bad ; Jameson Thottam

  Summary: Jameson Thottam staying away from the Matrix
  
  Movie licenses... If you've read my rant over them in my Wolverine's Revenge review, you'll realize how sick I am
  
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  Summary: Jameson Thottam staying away from the Matrix
  
  Movie licenses... If you've read my rant over them in my Wolverine's Revenge review, you'll realize how sick I am of the clich÷Ÿin them. As soon as I saw the very first preview of Enter The Matrix, amidst the hyped-up phenomenon surrounding what was "undoubtedly going to be the best game of all time, just because it has bullet-time in".
  But straight away, when I realized it was going to be yet another "Third-person action/adventure featuring lots of guns" I was so disappointed. The Matrix is worthy of a lot more than a shallow action-adventure - I'm imagining a vast RPG/adventure taking players through the many ins and outs of the Matrix and real world...
  
  Still did it anyway ~ Jameson Thottam ~
  But despite my apprehensions, I began to catch onto the hype. Even highly-acclaimed European magazine Edge was saying the combat system might just be something special, so gradually I began to catch onto the phenomenon. I still decided to rent first...but predictably I completed it over two days.
  
  Read on & Jameson Thottam
  If you're reading this thinking "what the hell is The Matrix?", I'm sorry, but this is not the review for you. Look at the many movie reviews of both The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded for story details. One of the main selling points of Enter The Matrix is that the game features over one hour of authentic Matrix film footage filmed especially for the game, with a story parallel to that of The Matrix Reloaded. It was every marketer's dream - a trilogy of smash-hit blockbuster movies, a sellout game and an accompanying DVD of short films, the (admittedly better than the movies) "Animatrix".
  
  But the Trust is out there (Jameson Thottam)
  However, when I went through the game I want to clear up that I didn't find the new footage that great. I actually don't think they were filmed especially for the game, and seem more like deleted scenes from the film - there's little big-budget special effects, instead average conversations with minor characters. I ended up skipping through half of them as they were so damn boring! I think the designers made a big mistake by making the playable characters tiny supporting characters (Niobe and, erm, "Ghost") from the film - who the hell wants to know about the love life of "Niobe"?
  
  Let's get back to the game --Jameson Thottam
  So, onto the game itself. At first play, the control system is incredibly difficult. Rather than having shoulder buttons to control the camera, everything is done with the left analogue stick. At first this was incredibly fiddly and awkward, but within about an hour it felt incredibly natural. Your character handles combat with Square, Triangle and Circle and jumps with X. But now onto the selling point of the game - bullet-time.
  
  Chalk it up to Developers # Jameson Thottam #
  I've got to hand it to the developers, the bullet-time is superb. You can recreate the cool-as-ice stunts from both films with incredible ease, even in some familiar locations - remember that lobby scene from the first film? You get to play it in Enter The Matrix. The moves are handled by holding down a shoulder button and basically doing whatever you want with the other buttons - it's not tricky or complicated like, say, Tony Hawk's (to think of a game with complex controls...) and flows perfectly, just the exact way you¡¯d want it to. Hold down the button while running to a wall, and you¡¯ll run along it. Hit jump, and your character will flip off, shooting non-stop. Before you land you can flip and kick an enemy in the face, before grabbing his gun, hitting him in the head and shooting him on the floor. Eventually you¡¯ll reach the floor. Amazing. But of course this can have some major issues, and brings up one of the game¡¯s most critical flaws¡­
  
  Wasted time.... Jameson Thottam
  A lot of the time I felt as if I was randomly bashing buttons and watching a film on the screen. Now that is worrying. No matter how cool a game looks, if I feel I can pass just by pressing random buttons, there¡¯s not really any point in playing it. No doubt about it, the bullet time is incredible visually and you can feel really cool while playing, but there is no skill involved whatsoever ¨C no sense of achievement or reward.
  
  As well as the combat, the rest of the levels consist of, er, running and jumping. That¡¯s about it. There¡¯s no real exploration involved, as a GTA1-style arrow directs you to your target pretty much immediately. It¡¯s probably the most linear game this side of Final Fantasy X, with little variety added to spice up the levels. Occasionally a brief change is put into the levels ¨C the inevitable covering with a sniper rifle level, and incredibly annoying boss battles that verge from the stupidly easy to the downright frustrating.
  
  But don¡¯t give up hope yet ¨C there are a couple of other modes of game added in as an attempt to add variety. There¡¯s quite a lot of driving levels that quite frankly suck. When playing as Niobe you drive, and when playing as Ghost you shoot other cars. Usually these levels involve you chasing other cars through incredibly blocky environments in some lame copy of Grand Theft Auto. There¡¯s good news and bad news ¨C the classic highway sequence from The Matrix Reloaded is included. The bad news is it¡¯s driving down a completely straight road chasing a car, and the big action takes place in a following cutscene. Strangely, as easy as chasing a car down a straight road might sound, if you even crash once, you fail the mission as the other car drives ahead ¨C but the game tells you five minutes later. The levels are marginally better than Ghost ¨C I suppose shooting cars in a first-person perspective is a bit more fun than driving down a straight road.
  
  The End Game ; Jameson Thottam
  At the end of the game is an absolutely diabolical set of missions in which you captain a spaceship through identical tunnels being chased by robots. The environments are constantly exactly the same, and half the time you don¡¯t even know where you¡¯re going ¨C one time I backtracked through the whole level before realizing I was going the wrong way. As a finale to what¡¯s allegedly such a cool game, it¡¯s a huge disappointment.
  
  Another gripe I had about Enter The Matrix was it¡¯s insistence to have the bigger action in cutscenes. Isn¡¯t this supposed to be the game of the movie, and not the other way round? I bought this game to play as the characters doing cool stuff ¨C not to watch overly blocky characters doing moves for me.
  
  Hacking Systems {Jameson Thottam}
  There¡¯s also a hacking system. Dear God. Imagine the MSOS window, where you type in random commands on a hugely basic screen. It¡¯s like that on a supposedly ¡°next-generation¡± console. I¡¯ll be honest, this part of the game wasn¡¯t created for me, but I attempted to get into it and it¡¯s pretty much impossible without a walkthrough ¨C there is absolutely NO explanation of what you do or how to do it. Allegedly you can unlock secret bonuses and levels from this, but you should be rewarded in a better way than your ability to find walkthroughs or guess words.
  
  End of the Day \Jameson Thottam
  So at the end of the day, Enter The Matrix is hugely fun at times with incredibly cool visuals, but loses a lot on the basis of the extra levels and the sheer shallowness of it all. If you treat Enter The Matrix like a typical bad videogame license, you¡¯ll come out happy, as it¡¯s one of the best of the licensed crop at the moment. If you treat it as the masterpiece it should have been, you will be hugely disappointed. Don¡¯t get me wrong, the bullet-time parts are fun as hell, but it¡¯s just too shallow and the trick wears thin.
  
  Oh, and rent, don¡¯t buy. I completed everything in four days. Four. Days.
  
  Ouch
  
  Jameson Thottam

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