Enter the Matrix

"The biggest upset that I have ever viewed."

In the Beginning
When you think of a movie as ground breaking as the matrix, you would think that the big franchise would be able to produce a worthy game title. Well, after waiting for the second movie to release, we are finally presented with the first Matrix game, Enter the Matrix. But unlike its big brother movie counter part, the Enter the Matrix video game seems all over, a week attempt at what should have been greatness. Enter the Matrix failed to deliver the satisfaction to that of the enjoyment of watching the movie and leaves more than a few things to be desired. It almost makes you wonder if the two Wachowski brothers actually previewed this game before shipment. After all of the games over the years that have incorporated the Matrix like moves, Enter the Matrix comes out looking as if it is the knock off game of them. But don't think that ETM has no good points to it, for it does, to an extent, but it's just one big disappointment.

Entering the Matrix
After all of the hype from the movie and then the extra hype when we herd that ETM would be a tie in with the movie, it took everyone by storm. People loved the idea that we would be seeing double then Matrix then just the movie viewers. But when I saw just exactly was what the tie-ins were, I could have lived without it. In fact, I could have waited for a totally different game, unrelated to any of the movies, that takes 2 more years to develop. For the end result ends up being some of the most confusing and pointless game play ever. For once, if you don't watch the movie, you will be confused out of your mind. I am still yet to see the Matrix Reloaded, and I'm still confused to this day on what I was doing in the game, the significance of what I was actually doing. For when you do enter the matrix, you will want to exit as fast just as you entered.

ETM uses a very disappointing system, leaving the player with high amounts of lag and lots of random falling bodies. What ETM does do, is gives the player some real, acted out and filmed short, and I mean short, FMV's. None are all that useful. The regular FMV's are absolutely atrocious for a game that has more potential then a glass of herbal elixirs. The character movements are very blotchy and very unimpressive, but I won't go into to much detail about it yet. On another note of disappointment, the games bullet time mode is almost obsolete, it seems almost pointless. You won't really need it, only on a few boss battles, and for leaping buildings, but that's all.

The Story
ETM is a weave in with the story of the main movie. The machines are going to try dig to the center of the earth, or something like that, and its up to you and the rest of the freed humans to save the real world. So then you must go on long, on going, boring missions, where you have to gather some sort of information. The game does a very poor job of explaining to you what you are doing and what the point of you doing it is. There seems to be no point to the tasks that are presented to you. But nun the less, the actual matrix like related parts are some what in dept but even for hard core matrix fans, it is more than a little boring.

The Off Time Controls
There is a definite learning curve on this, so as to actually be able to do something when you are in the bullet time, or just running around in the levels. The game seems to take a while to respond to your actions, especially in bullet time, it seems as if it responds just as fast as it moves. The controls for bullet time are pretty basic, just hold down the button and you're in it. In bullet time you can perform all of your favorite Matrix moves, such as running along walls, and doing the infamous off a wall back flip. But despite these movie-going moves, some of the others are big disappointments. It seems that you can take out almost everyone in a bullet time dive shot. With just a run and a jump, you can shoot down a whole army of cops without being hit. That is, if you can even target them in the first place. The one thing that is probably the most glitchy is the targeting system. Sure, you can push a button to lock on but its almost impossible to switch your targets without them pumping you full of lead in the mean time.

Back to the Basics
The rest of your controls are the basics, just like every other game before it. You have your jump, punch, kick, shoot, you know the basics. The driving sequences, although atrocious, are easier then the normal controls. Like I mentioned before, the fighting system is very glitchy. Its hard for you to actually do something, its almost like the computer takes over for you. The fighting controls could have been so much better than it was. It's always the same thing, over and over again. There's no difference between the levels. Normally this doesn't bother me in a good game, but in as something as dull as this, you almost want the levels to end.

Stop the Drowning and the Dull Explosions
Its really a sad sight to see such great memorable music degraded to nothing as bad as this. It seemed to me that each level shared the same, fast paced sound track that drowns on and on. And it gets quite painful to listen to after a while. But on a good side note, the voice acting is impressive, a little too impressive. The voices on the game are the same as they are on the movie. Just as annoying, and it seems that they're is more talking then there is actual game time. Just as soon as you finish your 6-minute level, its time for a 10 minute FMV, goody!

We've got Explosives
So if the sound track and the acting the game, then maybe the sound effects might be better? Well, I hate to be the barer of bad news but it's not. Nothing made me say wow like some of the other recent debuts. For once, I noticed that this game in general has toned down effects, like that they sound childish. What I'm trying to say is that they really don't match the effect of what's actually happening. So over all, the audio department could have used a couple more weeks rehab.

Hurry, Shield My Eyes!
I was very disappointed in how they graphically designed the game. There needed to be about 30 more pounds of polish applied on this game even to bring it up to a competitor level. The objects over all are grainy and are very rough on the edges. I don't really remember seeing any texturing now that I think of it. All of the characters and the levels are bland, leaves a lot more to be desired from the gamer. Sure, it's not a horrible look, but from something as big s the Matrix, ETM just seems like an over all poor try.

You call this decorated?
The over all level design is poor, very poor. The levels each carry a strange similarity as the level before it. Each level has the same blank walls, the same poor resolution, and the same poor texturing. And my complaint isn't only on how the level looks but how it's designed. The fact that they only place 3 objects in an airplane hanger is kind of bothersome. The rest of your objects in levels are grainy as well. Your weapons, the furniture, everything has a slight broken edge to it.

Hey, I know that guy!
One thing that the game does present very well is the acting FMV's. There just short clips of the real acting but it still ads a nice little touch to the game, almost making it seem worth while. After you complete a checkpoint you are presented the movie, normally dealing with Ghost and Niobie. But there are neat little clips that include the rest of the characters in the movie. Nice touch, but not enough to save it from the dreadfulness of what are the animated FMV's. Can you say sloppy? In the one place where the characters are supposed to actually look their best, their still as grainy as sand. Such a disappointment.

What would have been better, in my opinion, would have been for them to go back and finally polish off the edges. When you compare this to games that have come out right as the council released, this sadly can't compare. It just seems that everything has a low resolution. I wasn't impressed with the lighting effects, or the damage that you could inflict on the environments. Although it may seem that I'm absolutely destroying this game, the way that I see it, it's absolutely unacceptable for a game with as big as of a franchise as the Matrix to look this sloppy.

I know Kung-fu
If only the game would have played good, then maybe the rating on the rest of the game would have been good. ''Now, how could the game be so poor, even with all of the cool Matrix moves?'' you might be asking. Well, maybe if the matrix moves weren't in it, it would have been better. I guess it's just the fact that nothing truly ground breaking has been done besides the actual movie FMV's. ETM basically has two modes to it, the regular game, and then hacking into the Matrix (which just seems like a little last minute desperate feature).

In the main game there are pretty much two types of missions, driving and exploring. The exploring, which is where you do all of your fighting is the best between the two. In these levels is when you will fight and shoot your foes, and drop them all down on the ground without getting hit. In one of the more dumb levels you run away from the agents, and don't fight. You run on a scaffold away from agent Smith. But even when you do fight its still very boring to do.

Like a mentioned before, the game can pretty much be won in bullet time. Just go into it, do a cartwheel and shoot mode and you'll drop them all. The only level that actually made me redo it was in a level where you have to shoot down a firkin helicopter. Other wise, if you just hide and then shoot people. You can have two different weapons at once, either a hand grenade/flash bomb, and then your gun. Each are quite easy for you to use, it's just a matter of using them sparingly. After you kill an enemy, they will leave a weapon behind that you can pick up. But it always seems that you never have enough ammo because it takes almost 20 shots to knock people out. If it's meant to make the game harder, well it's seemed to fail. One thing that is a drag about your weapons, you can only hold one gun, meaning that you will be searching for ammo most often. The hand to hand combat is a very big disappointment all in itself. Fighting in the game is almost a rarity, besides in the earlier levels and the awesome fighting mission with Trinity. Sure, fighting looks cool, and it seems cool, but once you start doing it on your own it just seems to be another disappointment. It never seems that the game responds to your commands. You try and unleash combos onto your foes and yet the game denies you the ability to do to do it.

Driving is Wako if You Have Brain
Like I mentioned, the game has two sides to it, and this is the most boring part. In the driving missions either you will drive or you will ride shotgun and shoot cars, Ghost shoots Niobe Drives. I personally feel that the Ghost version is better but you unfortunately don't have the ability to change characters once you've started. In Ghost's missions you basically stick out of the sunroof of a car and hold down the fire button. That's all that you have to do. I noticed that most of the time the people that you were supposed to be shooting ended up getting right in you line of fire. But after that gets boring its fun just to go crazy and shoot random cars. Niobies missions are even worse. In her missions you must drive to the destinations and then tell Ghost when to pop up and shoot, but there's only a limited time that you can use him, for some odd reason. Yup, no matter how fun you think it is to drive, driving in the Matrix is like hell. Once again, the controls are slow to respond and seem not to have and physics to them at all. You can ram a wall straight on and your car will bounce right off of it and keep going, just as fast as before.

''Hacking'' the Matrix
What seemed to be a good idea at the time ends up being one of the most useless features in a game ever in my history of playing games. To me, it seemed like a big waste for them to created a whole software DOS program that is only used for putting in cheats and doing other pointless random acts. If you unlock all of the things for you to unlock, some pictures, descriptions and such, you are given a fighting game for you and the CPU or a friend to play. Not good, seeing as the fighting system is already doomed to begin with.

Haven't I Been Here Before?
Like I mentioned earlier, all of the levels are scarce on detail and on objects. You are also unable to interact with any of the environment, unless you consider being able to shoot canisters of fuel and have them explode. Each level is basically a point A to point B mission and gives you no free roaming access. You are forced to follow the set path to the end of the rabbit hole, from beginning to end. In addition to not being able to use the surroundings, there is nothing for you to really even to use. Its almost sad to see them incorporate and easy fence hopping technique when there's really nothing for you to hop the fences for. This is the main reason that the levels look as blah as they do. I could keep going on but I think that I've covered it all.

So lets review what's happened so far...

Story5/10
Controls7/10
Audio6/10
Visuals4/10
Gameplay5/10
Final Score: 5/10

This game was also very discouragingly easy and short, to say the least. It seemed that no matter what difficulty level I had it on, it was always to easy for me, but you might find it different. You should also know that each character has there own story behind them so you'll want to play as each character, if you even wasn't to replay the game once again. But there were some things that I found well, along with the bad.

Pros
- Nice character FMV's
- Nice variety in weapons
- Interesting characters

Cons
- Poor animations
- Annoying and long FMV's
- Boring levels
- Low resolution and detail
- Unimpressive lighting and reflective effects
- Scarce levels
- Poor character design

The Final Verdict
In the end, ETM delivers enough fun for the die-hard fans of the Matrix, but ends with an over all poor game. In my opinion, the game was obviously rushed to be able to ship when the Matrix Reloaded came out. It needed to be smother and it needed to be more original. I'm still yet to find that perfect game that can out do the Metal Gear Solids and the Grand Theft Autos, and ETM fails to even scratch the surface. If you ever are tempted to enter the Matrix, I suggest you do as everyone should and run, run as fast as you can away from it.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/05/03, Updated 07/05/03