Enter the Matrix

"There's only one thing thats good about Enter the Matrix, and thats it first impressions"

Those that have watched The Matrix Reloaded must have been excited for the video game counterpart Enter the Matrix. Whats interesting about Enter the Matrix is that it's a story of its own, just like the Matrix, Reloaded and Revolutions. The game is neither a prequel or sequel to Reloaded, but rather follows the story of Niobe and Ghost during the events of Reloaded. Including exclusive real life scenes that relate to the game, die hard fans of the Matrix trilogy had to get this game, hence the tremendous hype and incredible sales it's been receiving, but those die hard fans of video games will be disappointed with another trash license based game.

When first starting up the game, you'll have the choice of either choosing Niobe or Ghost. Both are quite different not only statistically wise, but the levels have been specifically modified for both people, giving some replay value to ETM (Enter the Matrix). I chose Niobe because she's so much sexier, but it was a hard choice, believe me, asian pride or a sexy girl. Niobe's model is quite sexy, and looks almost exactly like what she does in the Matrix reloaded, as well as Ghost's model. Very impressive. Both Niobe's and Ghost's voices are well done, sounds exactly like their counterpart acts from Reloaded. The posture when both characters hold duel pistol guns looks very realistic; both the characters hold both their hands in the air in an impressive way. Though the game's sounds and graphics seem to be concentrated on these characters alone.

ETM's atmosphere feels extremely dull, giving such a lonely and empty mood. There's no interaction in the environment, no noise, nothing. The mood alone is a big drawback to the game. The only time when noise occurs is when you're fighting. The environment and enemies look very simplistic and very dull, with little to no detail to sprout. The enemies also have very dull voices, or no voices at all. When shooting a shotgun at an enemy guard, neither the shotgun or guard make any exciting noise. The shotgun hardly made any noise, and the guard just fell to the ground without even screaming. Not all is dull, for the exclusive real life cutscenes were very well done. The characters gave great character and great acting with firm voices. My absolute favourite cutscene has to be when Persephone and Niobe kiss, wow! I must of said dull a million times now, but either than Niobe, Ghost, and the exclusive real life cutscenes, the sounds and graphics department is extremely dull, lacking life and excitement.

At first, the gameplay is terrific! Many people will find the combat system very revolutionary, which I think it is. For the karate portion, your locked onto the nearest enemy; with the view changing to a 2D perspective, looking like a fighting game. You can string together a combo attack using the kick and punch button; very entertaining to watch. For the other part of the combat system, weapons had been added, which comes in a large variety. You'll find weapons like shotguns, machine guns, pistol guns and the ability to use duel firearms. The game gets more interesting now with the guns, and more fun.

You'll learn a bunch of new tips with the game's tip system, which serves to be very annoying at times. The tips you'll be receiving are things like dodging bullets, taking cover, taking cover and jumping while shooting, things like that. Though many of these tips aren't necessary or needed, since the enemies are extremely easy to defeat. Which brings the game down, the enemies are the same! They're the same cops/security guards just with different eye candy. They all carry guns and they all know karate, except inferior. Through out the whole game, you'll be fighting the same enemies, which I can tell you gets very tedious very fast. Not even the game's brilliant bullet time effect helps, where the game slows down on purpose, giving you the advantage to dodge bullets, or bending the rules of gravity by jumping farther. Not like it's needed, because the only thing you'll really be needing is guns and good aiming.

I can tell you, if the police officers/security guards/people sent to kill you didn't have guns, this game would be tons more enjoyable. It's very difficult to go up to an officer/guard/people sent to kill you without getting hit by their comrades. So what do you do? Shoot the hell out of them. The karate portion of the game can only be well initiated if you've strung it in with the bullet time effect, but the bullet time effect is limited, as is your use of karate. The shooting portion of the game isn't really that good anyways, since the enemies are easily killed with one bullet. The developers overloaded the enemies with ammo, which was the biggest downfall of the game.

The difficulty levels hasn't been well thought out. In hardest mode, the game will overrun you with enemies, which makes it even more tedious to take them out one by one. The bullet time gauge has also been more limited, so rarely will you be using your karate skills in that difficult. Medium doesn't help too; it's actually hard, just less frustrating. If you sit around for like a minute, you'll be completely healed for no reason, which is more limited in hard and medium difficulties. The thing is, it just gets more frustrating when it is limited, since each bullet takes away like 20% of your life, rather than less than 3% on easy. So no matter what difficulty you choose, you're screwed.

Well, the developers tried to be innovative once again. In certain levels, you'll be in the car, either driving the vehicle or protecting using machine guns. If you've picked Ghost, then you'll be the one shooting, and Niobe is the one to drive. While it does sound quite innovative, it sucks. The physics realism isn't customizable to your preferences, and the standard one is garbage. There's one particular level where your suppose to drive around avoiding the cops. Well, their AI hasn't changed from on foot to the driver's seat, so they'll be easily faked out or lost. Another one has you driving for minutes on a linear highway, while avoiding traffic. Well, since the traffic isn't going your direction, it's incredibly easy to simply dodge all the cars without getting hit, and to think your doing this for at least five minutes? Just too boring. Though Ghost's position isn't as bad is Niobe's, it gets repetitive as well.

It's very sad to see potential like this fly away because of a couple of flaws and minor mistakes. The sad thing is, these mistakes could of been easily fixed, making the developers look lazy. Knowing that the Matrix license is very popular, I predict they're like the other developers, depending on its famous license to sell. I just don't understand why they would put over $4 million bucks into developing such a flawed game? There is one particular level that is actually quite fun to play over and over, and thats a level where everyone is disabled of using weapons; relying on your skills of karate. If only the whole game was like this, then it would be more enjoyable to play.

Overall, the game is pretty damn fun when your playing the first level, though thats the only fun part of the game. The game has been soley concentrated on the two playable characters, ignoring the importance of everything else, including enemy AI, diversity of enemies, graphically the environment, the atmosphere texture, the dull and unrealistic sound, and the whack difficulty settings. If the developers took these things into consideration when still in development, then this game could of been one of the most impressive games this generation, though Enter the Matrix proves how less developers care for the actual game, and care for how popular the license is, hence blending in with the product's sales.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 04/07/04, Updated 08/10/04