Welcome…to the real world
Warning: This section below may possibly contain spoilers for those who do not know the premise of, or haven’t seen The Matrix Reloaded.
Enter the Matrix runs parallel to the events of The Matrix Reloaded. An army of 250,000 squiddies are headed towards Zion, due to reach their destination in 72 hours. While all the crews of the various ships are called back to Zion to defend the city, Neo heads into the Matrix to find out what his role is as the One. Meanwhile, the crew of the Logos, Niobe and Ghost head into the Matrix to retrieve a package left behind by Thaddeus, captain of the Osiris.
I know Kung Fu
Enter the Matrix is broken into several different gameplay segments – on foot, driving, turret shooting and hacking. The path through the game will also differ depending on whether you choose Ghost or Niobe, though the characters are relatively the same for the most part. Gameplay is constantly interrupted by cinematics, both real time and full motion video, which was filmed at the same time as The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions, and used the same actors and sets as those two movies.
On foot action makes up a majority of the gameplay time and fortunately it is Enter the Matrix’s strongest aspect. You should be right at home if you’ve played Max Payne or any of the other bullet time games on the market. Controlling your character in these sections will seem tricky at first due to the amount of buttons combos used for performing the best moves, but you’ll be acquainted with the controls within about 15 minutes. Combat comes in two forms: gun based and hand to hand. Gun based combat works similarly to most other 3rd person shooters on the market, but the Focus meter (essentially your bullet time bar) allows you to pull off spectacular stunts, such as spiraling dives, wall running, wall flips, cartwheels, the long jump and much more. Hand to hand combat is probably the most enjoyable part of Enter the Matrix, as your character can do all sorts of cool martial arts moves and combos. When the Focus meter is activated, the moves become more powerful and more awe-inspiring. Running up the wall and kicking an agent in the face never seems to get tiring. While on foot, you receive various objectives for your character to accomplish, such as running through a mail center to retrieve a package, shooting the front wheel off the front of a plane, and running away from agents while trying to find a hardline to escape from the Matrix.
The game’s driving sections lack the polish that the on foot sections have. There are two roles in the driving sequences – driver and gunner. In all but one case, Ghost will be the gunner, and Niobe will be the driver. The problem with the driving sections, other than the awfully plain graphics and bad texture work, are the poor physics and the whole “on-rails” feel perpetuated through the sequence. Poor physics make the car feel like you’re driving a boat – the car does the most ridiculous jumps whenever it hits a bump in the road, not to mention that the handling is entirely nothing like any other car I’ve ever seen. The on rails feel relates more to when you’re the gunner, although there is only ever one road you can take as the driver. All you’re ever required to do is shoot cars a few times so that they explode, but this is made difficult by the fact that your AI driver constantly rams into the shells of the cars you just took out, which in turn will cost you health when an agent car rams you in the back end.
Manning the turrets on/Flying the Logos is another dull, on-rails task for you to endure during the game. Once again, Niobe is the pilot and Ghost is the gunner. This time, instead of driving on roads, you’re attempting to navigate your way through sewers or tunnels in the real world, while being chased by an armada of squddies. It’s not really too involving, as all you are required to do is blast the occasional squiddy, or just make sure you don’t crash into the various debris scattered throughout the tunnels.
Hacking is accessed via the main menu, and isn’t really tied into the main game, rather, you hack your own save file to unlock various cheats, film clips, test levels, guns and even a multiplayer sparring mode. It’s a little unnerving trying to hack using a Dual Shock 2, especially when USB Keyboard support could have been utilized, so you’ll have to make do.
Enter the Matrix isn’t exactly a lengthy game, with the main portion taking about 6-8 hours to complete. Considering that you need to finish it with both characters to see all of the action, you might as well read that as 12-16 hours. Add in a few hours for hacking, and you’re probably looking at about 20 hours in the end.
I'm going to enjoy watching you die, Mr. Anderson
Enter the Matrix has been criticised for its visuals since it was first displayed, and unfortunately the final build hasn’t made matters any better. Visuals aren’t entirely bad on the whole; it’s just that you’d expect more from a project of this magnitude. Character modelling is fairly good, especially with the hands, feet and facial constructions. Animation is amazing, easily the game’s greatest graphical strength, thanks to quality motion capturing done during the shooting of the movies. Martial arts moves are probably some of the most accurate we will see during this generation of consoles. That’s not to say that all the animation is great – running looks stiff and robotic.
The environments lack the ability to compliment the good models and animation. All of the environmental settings look dull, and are covered in poor textures. This comes off the worst in the driving sequences which almost make you feel as if you are driving down a grey tube. In fact, the driving sequences are probably the worst part of the game – the car modelling is the worst we’ve ever seen – it barely even compares to first generation 3D car modelling – the wheels are hexagonal for God’s sake. The camera behaves very well throughout the course of the game, only acting up on the occasional transition between hand to hand and gun combat. Frame rate is consistent, though you will notice that it drops between 60 and 30 frames per second a lot.
For a game whose selling point is directed towards cinematics which show the other part of a story, Enter the Matrix’s videos are well below par. Though some compression was undoubtedly required for a game which contains about an hour and a half of footage, the least they could have done was use decent compression. Videos fill about ¼ of the screen thanks to the compression, and the portion you can see looks fairly horrid. The option of different aspect ratios or the possibility of Atari producing the game on a DVD9 would have made things a lot better. That said, the action in the videos gives you a decent idea of what Ghost and Niobe got up to during the events which took place in The Matrix Reloaded, as well as providing for some stronger character development for these two characters.
The style of music featured in The Matrix and its sequels is prevalent throughout Enter the Matrix, with some parts of the film soundtracks making their way into the game while other tunes have been produced for the game. Sound effects are pretty good, but could have benefited from some form of surround sound, even if it was the most basic form of Pro Logic. Voice acting is among the best we’ve heard in any game - all of the original cast reprise their roles for the game, with Jada Pinkett-Smith and Anthony Wong providing the voices for Niobe and Ghost respectively. Unfortunately, there is a glitch that is still present in the game which will cause voices to echo in the in-game cut scenes, which gives us the impression certain aspects of this title were rushed to get the game on the shelves at the same time Reloaded released into theatres.
Dodge this
Enter the Matrix excels in presentation, but lacks punch in other aspects of the game. It doesn’t really matter what I say here, because people are going to lap this game up. If you’re a more cautious buyer, just be wary of the fact that the game is largely inconsistent – certain parts of this game are awesome, while other parts should really have been left on the cutting room floor. There are still a few glitches that really should have been ironed out for release, but it’s pretty apparent that the game was rushed to retail to cash in on the success of The Matrix Reloaded. If you’re a fan of the Matrix, you should at least give this title a rent to see the extra footage and find out more about the characters of Ghost and Niobe.
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