Enter the Matrix

"The Wachowski brothers deserve better."

Gameplay: 2/10

Yes, I too was sucked into the vortex of hype for this game.

Hype, hype, hype.

It always makes a game seem better than it will be.

It worked well for this game.

I was drawn into buying this game because ever since I saw ''The Matrix'' I have been wishing for a game similar to the movie. Finally, a game that actually promises that! I reserved this game in December, immediately after I saw info about it in Game Informer.

On the 15th I went into my local GameStop as soon as school was out and got the game. I popped it in, played for an hour, went to eat, came back, and later went to bed thinking it was the coolest game of all time.

I thought that despite the fact that I beat every level in 7 minutes or less.

Over the last few days I have breezed through this game. No troubles whatsoever. The only way I was able to not be bothered by this was that I kept reassuring myself that the game would spread out long enough that it would gradually get harder.

It didn't.

Today at 5:43 Central Time, I completed ''Enter the Matrix'' with a total play time of approximately 4 hours and 23 minutes.

I couldn't believe it. Was it REALLY over, or was I dreaming?

I wasn't. It was over. I have corrected the timer though. I believe that I actually had 6 hours or so of play time, seeing as I spent about 1/2 to 3/4 of the time it took me to complete a level at the loading screen. In one case, the loading screen took 3 minutes to finish, and all I had to do to complete the level was walk through the door immediately ahead of me at the start. Then, a cutscene. After that, another loading screen.

In short, this game is about as worth your $50 as Parappa the Rapper 2 in terms of gameplay. Its only good point was the Focus meter, which gave this section the 2 point boost from the 0 it would have gotten otherwise.

Story: 6/10

I don't want to give away what little of the story was portrayed, so I won't. I would have been very confused with what was going on in the game had I not seen the movie. However, I will give the makers this: what they actually told you about the plot, they told well.

Graphics: 2/10

Oh God....

In order to synchronize the release of this game with the release of the second installment of the Matrix series, this game was rushed at the speed my friend Chance's eyes move when he has his seizures.

The graphics were just... bad. The makers were lucky they had the cinematics to back them up, those were good. However, the graphics in the cinematics are almost definitely always going to be good, considering the fact that this is a DVD.

Why were the graphics bad? Picture the character models from Grand Theft Auto 3. Now, imagine them worse. See what I mean. That's bad. The characters' bodies seemed... hollow. You really have to see the graphics for yourself to understand, I suppose.

Audio: 7/10

Surprisingly enough, there actually were good qualities to this game. The sound was worked out very well. There was voice acting for everything, with the exception of instant messages from Sparks and the menus, of course. The voice acting was also good which is certainly a perk, considering the voice of Tidus in Final Fantasy X *snicker*.

There was also something else I noticed, which I found quite enjoyable in that it required extra work on the developers' part. It's quite small, I'm surprised I even noticed it. When you are shimmying across chain-link fences, different noises are made depending on whether you are carrying guns or not. The same goes for when you hit enemies.

The grade was dropped because of an annoying glitch I encountered in nearly every cutscene. The sound would playback about 3 times, causing an echo-like effect. I would not have lowered the grade by 3 points had this problem not been so frequent and so annoying.

Replayability: 4/10

If not for the Focus and Hacking features, this game would have no replayability whatsoever. However, the Hacking system is so intricate and just so... cool that you cannot help but enjoy it. The Focus feature... well, just imagine your character performing stunts similar to (but not the same as) those of Trinity and Neo. If the gameplay wasn't so horrible, there would be more replayability.

Rent/Buy
Since there is no point in telling you to not play this game at all, I will tell you this: Rent this game first. Do not buy it. There is no good reason to spend the amount of money I had to spend on a game of such low caliber. Don't make the same mistake I did.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 05/19/03, Updated 05/19/03