Enter the Matrix

"Wake Up Neo... Time to Play Enter the Matrix!"

Enter the Matrix:
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Neo... wake up... The Matrix has you...

Ahhh, Enter the Matrix. Thursday, May 15th, 2003. Today Enter the Matrix and The Matrix: Reloaded came out. Quite a fun day for everyone. I admit, I haven't seen the new movie yet. However, I have played the game. Well, let's get down to it!

First off, you regrettably aren't ''The One''. Else the game wouldn't be fun. Can you imagine not being able to get hurt killing any agents instantly, flying, and doing various other cool things? Yes, it would be fun for a while but then it would just get boring. So, instead, the wonderful people at Shiny, working with the Wachowski brothers, decided to let you chose between our kung-fun captain Niobi and our weapons-wielding first-mate Ghost. Now if you've seen the movies (or have heard about it), you know that they don't have exactly... a staring role. Instead, you guys and girls do the behind-the-scenes stuff. Neo can't do it all on his own you know. Try to see the movie first, it's supposed to make more sense because you'll actually know WHY you're doing what you're doing in the game. Now on to the review!

(Disclaimer: Tell you the truth, I am kind of biased, we all are. What with the hype and my natural love of the Matrix I would say that it's hard for any game to live up to my standards with that counting in. This game did. Also, these are my opinions, if you don't like them, well, it's not your review now is it? With that out of the way, here's the review!)

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Graphics:
These graphics aren't grown breaking by any means. No Splinter Cell or Final Fantasy X here. But they suffice for the game(play). They characters are well detailed and the backgrounds have some amount of depth. In some levels there are various ads (Nvidia, Poweraid, etc.). There's also some random items, desks, control panels, benches, and other things. These give you some leverage to do some rather cool moves off of, but more on that later.

Summary: Not ground breaking but they do.
Score: 8/10

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Sound:
Some songs from the movie I presume but I never really pay much attention to this category anyways. Some techno tunes and different music to excite you while your fighting. The gun shots sound kind of realistic and they do pretty well for what they're for. The voices are from the actors in the movie and are of good quality. Some other actors and guards also say a couple things.

Summary: Again, the sounds do, but you'll probably forget them when you're in the mist of a fight.
Score: 8/10

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Gameplay:
Here's the meat of this game (and any game for that matter). You get some choices here. Let me give you an example situation in the game:
Your in a lobby will some guards walking around. They don't know your a threat yet and are going about their business patrolling the area.
You can:
A) Walk past them all to your goal.
B) Whip out dual pistols, go into bullet time and blast them all.
C) Sneak behind one of them, grab their neck in your arms and snap their neck. Repeat as necessary.
D) Unleash a massive kung-fu spree on all of them. Use you focus powers to do flips and jumps off the wall.
E) Any combination of these.
F) Various other things I haven't thought of.

As far as guns go, I've seen some cool ones. You got pistols, dual pistols, shotguns, grenades, knives, various machine guns to name a view. You can easily holster, switch guns, and unholster weapons with the press of a button. Focus is done by hitting L1 and then doing a jump, kick, punch, firing, etc. It changes on what you do. You can use it to do roundhouse kicks off a table, flips up and off a wall, super leaps (think Trinity in number one through the small window), long jumps, super kicks and punches, and of course dodging bullets. The moves and actions are done with (most of the time) the press of a button or two and are meant to be very cool. They are. You can roundhouse kick a guy, do a backjump, pull out a machine gun, and gun down three guys behind you in a matter of seconds (and presses). It has a pretty small learning curve and gives you various tips that can be accessible via the start button and then clicking on tips. Also, there are various mini-games such as driving or shooting out of a car (rail shooter), doing things in the ship in the ''real world'', and ''hacking'' the game. It may sound weird or stupid but it's all pulled off very well. The levels are divided into sections with small loading times and a chance to save during the middle of these. At the end or beginning of levels you get a cut-scene that has a real video footage and in-game cut-scene almost spliced together. I am told that there is over one hour of extra footage filmed exclusively for this game. If/when you die you simply go back to the last time you saved. The level designs are fairly well done. Enough cover and objects to jump off when the going gets tough. Baddies seem to drop ammo right when you run out and if they don't you can always kill a couple with kung-fu until you get some more ammo. Your health and focus refill on their own when your not fighting and you hardly even seem to get hurt and your focus is never really totally depleted. It refills fairly quickly letting you be pretty crazy with the slow-mo. All in all, quite good!

Summary:
Fun Factor: Really great, kung-fu, jumps, wall jumps. If it's done in the first movie you can probably do it in the game.
Score: 10/10

Cool Factor: ... It's the Matrix...
Score: 9/10

Controls: Simplistic (in a good way). Easy to do really cool things and pretty easy to learn.
Score: 9/10

Overall Gameplay: You do stuff you only wish you could do in the real life. It all comes together really well and makes you want to learn kung-fu!
Score (not an average):9.5/10

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Story:
Without revealing much, Ghost and Niobi venture through some different (and some rather odd) places doing the dirty work for the movie. See the movie first if you don't want it to be spoiled. On most levels they take different paths and meet at the end often covering for each other or assisting each other (when driving for example). You'll also be happy to hear that you meet up/run from some agents along the ways. Again, don't want to spoil anything but its pretty well done.

Summary: See the movie first if you don't like spoilers.
Score: 8.5/10

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Overall:
Do your self a favor and pick this one up. Even if you have never seen or don't like the Matrix, it's still a good game in all (well most) respects. Some people have complained about glitches but as far as I can tell it's their disc. Make sure to keep a recite. With official Wachowski brothers story and ideas, you really can't go wrong. Don't miss this one!

Overall (not an average): 9/10

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Rent or Buy?
I'd strongly say buy. If you can't afford to shell out $50 now you could rent it and see how you like it and consider buying it or wait until the price comes down a bit. If your really really unsure (why would you be?), I would say do the safe thing and rent it just to be sure (I HATE wasting money on a bad game). I hope that I've been of some assistance.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/19/03, Updated 05/19/03