The Matrix: Path of Neo

by Atari

Product Features

• As Neo, you'll make choices that resolve scenarios -- and face the consequences of those choices
• Sophisticated new martial arts engine brings gamers the feel being Neo, as he faces Agents, Exiles working for the Merovingian and heavily-armed SWAT teams
• Enahnced Bullet Time special effects allow gamers to dodge bullets, jump off walls and defy gravity and logic to recreate its most memorable scenes
• Features original footage from all three 3 films, plus sequences from The Animatrix
• Features likenesses of all main characters, including Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Ann Moss and Hugo Weaving

Product Details

• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B0009PETYO
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: September 8, 2006
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,073 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Platform: PlayStation2 | Edition: Standard

From the Manufacturer

The Matrix: Path of Neo follows the story of the blockbuster motion-picture trilogy The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, and The Matrix Revolutions, and for the first time allows gamers to play as Neo and become "the One".

Gamers play as Neo, but from the moment the game begins, how the situations play out, how they handle them, how they deal with the events, where they go, how people react to them--it's all up to the gamer. They may win where Neo failed or find another way to solve the problem--the path is now theirs to follow.

As Neo, the choices the player makes to resolve each scenario and the resulting consequences may have a different result than the original films. Alternative scenarios filled with new characters, content, and storylines have all been written and planned by the Wachowski Brothers to expand the Matrix universe and overall gaming experience.

Gamers assume the role of Neo from when, as Thomas Anderson, he gets the cell phone in the package from Morpheus, to the flying street battle in the rain against Agent Smith.

• Read codes, fly, run, and jump off walls
• Dodge bullets and master martial arts
• Experience true in-game Matrix physics

Features:

• Once again blurring the lines between Hollywood and interactive entertainment, The Matrix: Path of Neo features the likenesses of all of the films’ key actors--including Keanu Reeves (Neo), Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus), Carrie-Ann Moss (Trinity), Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith), and Jada Pinkett-Smith (Niobe).
• To truly immerse the gamer in the Matrix universe, the game features a "Director’s Cut" of the original movie footage from all three films and The Animatrix as cinematic sequences to progress the story told from Neo’s perspective. An exclusive to The Matrix: Path of Neo, the footage was edited by Zach Staenberg, the Academy Award winning editor of The Matrix working side by side with the Wachowski Brothers.
• Re-creating the incredible ambience of being in the Matrix, The Matrix: Path of Neo features a full orchestral score playing in surround sound, developed to follow the action of the game. In addition, the games’ soundtrack features original songs by the bands that were featured in the Matrix films.
• Use martial arts, medieval weapons, and guns (lots of guns) to take on a variety of enemies, such as heavily armed SWAT officers; agents of the Matrix, including Agent Smith; and Exiles in the employ of the Merovingian. To help prepare for these battles, there are several training levels which Neo must complete.
• Enhanced "Bullet Time" special effects from the films; dodge bullets, jump off walls, and defy gravity and logic to recreate most memorable scenes.
• To re-create Neo’s incredible range of moves The Matrix: Path of Neo also features a more sophisticated martial arts engine to give gamers the true feeling of being "the One".

Product Description

THE MATRIX: PATH OF NEO will follow the story of the blockbuster motion picture trilogy THE MATRIX, THE MATRIX RELOADED and THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS and for the first time allow gamers to play as Neo and become "the One". Gamers will play as Neo, but from the moment the game begins, how the situations play out, how they handle them, how they deal with the events, where they go, how people react to them -- it's all up to the gamer. They may win where Neo failed or find another way to solve the problem -- the path is now theirs to follow. As Neo, the choices the player makes to resolve each scenario and the resulting consequences may have a different result than the original films. Alternative scenarios filled with new characters, content and storylines have all been written and planned by the Wachowski Brothers to expand the Matrix universe and overall gaming experience. Gamers will assume the role of Neo from when, as Thomas Anderson, he gets the cell phone in the package from Morpheus, to the flying street battle in the rain against Agent Smith.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

98 of 103 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Is Neo the One?, November 19, 2005

By 

Ian (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: The Matrix: Path of Neo (Video Game)

Finally, after SIX FRIGGIN YEARS, we finally get to play as the big guy himself from the Matrix trilogy! That's right, put your hands together, because you play as...Mouse!

Just kidding! Unlike the last matrix game, this time you finally get to play as the savior of mankind, Neo. Was it worth the wait? From my point of view, yes.

Before we go any further, I'd like to give everyone a warning about the game. WHEN YOU SEE A WHITE SCREEN AND TWO CHAIRS COMING TOWARDS YOU, SKIP THIS CUTSCENE! IF YOU DON'T, THE GAME WILL RUIN THE ENDING FOR YOU!

There we go. I apologize if I gave you the impression that I was shouting, but I wish that someone had told me this before I played the game. More on this later.

At first glance, Path of Neo simply seems to be a reworked Enter the Matrix, except that you play as Neo, and with better graphics. In a way that's true, because Path of Neo (PON) is a third person game where you run around shooting lots of guns, getting into lots of hand to hand combat, and doing cool matrix moves.

What all is different here from Enter the Matrix? Better graphics for one. While lots of people don't seem to think the graphics are bad, they really aren't. They are better then Enter the Matrix and have a higher level of quality. There are lots of moments where I went "Wow" when seeing some spectacular scenery. But, as many have pointed out, when you get up close and personal, the graphics can get pretty blocky and unimpressive. Overall, I'd say the graphics are pretty good, but not earth-shattering.

But gameplay always takes superiority over graphics. And while it stumbles along the way, PON for the most part succeds. If you haven't guessed already from the title, you play PON from Neo's point of view. You start out as wimpy Mr. Anderson, running from cops and armed only with a push move. As the game moves on, you slowly begin to unlock powerful moves one by one, further transforming yourself from a wimply desk worker to an ass-kicking trenchcoat fighter (who knows kung-fu!).

The meat and potatoes of PON is it's fighting engine. While the last game was a half and half mix between firing weapons and doing button mashing, PON places a bigger emphasis on hand to hand combat. While you can get into big gunfights if you want to, more often then not you'll be getting up close and personal with your feet and with your fists. Herin lies PON's greatest strength. The hand to hand combat system is a lot better and a lot more satisfying then Enter the Matrix was. While you could breeze through the last game simply by mashing buttons, you have to actually work and memorize combos to get through PON.

But you don't have to worry about seeing the combination for a move only once, then try to memorize it. PON has a nifty feature to help you out. When you get into hand to hand combat with an enemy, the game oftentimes suggests what buttons to press by showing the button in the left corner of the screen. For example, start punching an enemy with the triangle button, and the game will show the square button, suggesting that you should press that button to disarm the enemy. This feature is extremly useful, and helps you learn the various moves quickly.

And oh boy...you get some incredibly powerful moves througout the game. By the end of your journey as Neo, you'll be smashing jaws, punching people twenty times in five seconds, and smashing your foe's skulls into the ground while you stand on them. Shiny has put virtually all of Neo's moves from the movies into the game, and it's great fun to do them yourself, including his "run up guy's chest and kick him in head" move to "Slam both fists into an enemy, sending them flying across the room". Pulling off these moves eventually becomes a breeze, and when you get really good at it, you will really feel like you are Neo, because you can take down any foe you come across. Late in the game, agents won't be able to get even close to you without flying across the room from a well placed kick.

If you don't feel like doing hand to hand combat, you can take up gunfighting. Neo will come across a large array of weapons during his path as the One (though the variety of weapons is nowhere near as big as the last game). You get pistols, shotguns, submachine guns, bombs, even grenade launchers (very useful against helicopters). All of these weapons get the job done, but trust me, you'll have much more fun punching your foes! Though I have to admit, flying through the air in slow motion while firing in every possible direction is quite cool!

Because you are the one, and because you are aware that the matrix is an illusion, you have the abillity to focus yourself and use the illusion to your advantage. Focus returns from the last game, but it's slightly tweeked. Focus is essentially the ability to move faster, punch harder (much harder) and use exclusive moves that are physically impossible to pull off. With the touch of a button, you can stop bullets, dodge bullets, leap high into the air, take out up to four foes at once, and so much more. You'll even be able to activate code vision, which allows you to see those famous green lines that make up the matrix.

While the game does contain virtually every action sequence from all three movies (sorry guys, you can't have sex with trinity in Zion), it expands many of these scenes. For example, at the end of the first movie, Neo stopped bullets, destroyed Smith, and glared at the other agents. In the game, you stop the bullets, but then run through the rooms in the hallway, laying the smackdown on the agents. Likewise, after Neo beats up the Merovingians thugs (Sadly, you can't kill that french a**hole. Why?!), he has to journey through the guy's dungeons to reach Morpheus and Trnity. It's a blast to fight Smith, participate in the Burly brawl, and take to the skies in the explosive final battle from Revolutions.

There are several scenes put in exclusivly for the game that are not in the movie. Most of these scenes take place in the timeframe between movies 1 and 2, telling you some of the things that Neo did between the movies. In one truly brilliant level that should have been in the second movie, you run around T.V. filled hallways while Agent Smith ominously taunts you from the screens.

Sound and audio work well too. Laurence Fishburn (Morpheus) returns to do new audio for his charachter and does a great Job. For everyone else we have imitators who do a really good job (but Agent Smith sounds nothing like he was in the movie). The music is...well, music. Almost nothing from the movie's soundtrack made it in, but the new stuff is simply average.

There are also a good amount of jokes in the game, poking fun at movie critics ("Oh I get it, the black suited guy is the savior of humanity!"), video game critics ("Video games are teaching our children violence!"), and video games themselves ("I got the high score on Time Crisis"). My favorite joke comes from Agent Smith. When you get cut off from him, he keeps talking to you "I know you're in there Mr. Anderson! I can...smell you!"

But alas, PON does make a few foulups along the way, mostly with control, repetitivness, and the final battle.

The control is probably the biggest problem that you'll face in PON. It's a very strange setup which takes the better part of an hour or two to get the hang of. Gunplay in paticular is terrible. You press R2 to pull out your gun (which is selcted with the left and right buttons), use the right analog stick to select your target, then press square to fire. During all of your gun battles, you'll also be moving with the left analog stick, jumping through the air and using focus as well, meaning that you'll be pressing more buttons as well. So you'll be running around, focusing, jumping, targeting, and shooting all at the same time. It's frustrating to get the hang of, but thankfully, it eventually becomes second nature.

The repetivitvness is another problem. All but two of the game's missions eventually boil down to "Run around and beat everyone up". This is fun, but the game suffers from a lack of variety in the missions. The only exceptions are the opening stealth level and a turret shooting level.

The storytelling in the game is a joke. The game does feature clips and scenes from all the matrix movies (and the animatrix as well), but the editing is in a fast cut/music video style, which just doesn't work. I was able to figure out what was going on, but the storytelling in the game is very sloppy and doesn't work. Seeing all the movies is necessary before you play the game.

Some sections of the game are also quite short. The burly brawl sequence lasts less then five minutes, not even enough time to beat up the Smith's you want to.

The biggest issue I have with the game is with the final battle, and the ending. Before you worry, i'm not going to reveal what they are.

The final battle from Revoltuions is the game's final level, where you fight Smith on the street, in the air, in the building, and in the crater. But after that battle is over, the game has you do one final fight that's not from the movie. It starts out with a cutscene of the Wachowski brothers coming onscreen and explaining why they changed the ending of the game from the movie. In the process, they tell you what the final battle is before you play it, giving away any suprise that you might have had. This is an enormously stupid mistake that ruined the battle for me. It's like the director of the sixth sense showing up on screen five minutes before the end of the movie and saying, "Well, I had this in mind for the ending, but I decided to... Read more ›

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Visit to the Matrix World, November 13, 2005

By 

Lisa Shea "medieval swordfighting enthusiast" - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: The Matrix: Path of Neo (Video Game)

You can almost feel like the world is a bit saturated with Matrix-related stuff. Still, this game is quite fun to play and features newly re-mixed video.

The Wachowski Brothers personally worked on this game, and recombined video segments from the movies to build new sequences for the game. It really helps to have seen the movies, because while the game does move along with a plot, the montages of video clips would probably be very confusing if you didn't have the basic idea of what was going on.

So what IS going on. You're Neo, and you are given the choice of a red pill or blue pill. Amusingly, if you take the blue pill, you're sent back through your alarm clock and wake up as if out of a dream. Take the red pill, and you start on your path to Being the One. First it's a tutorial-like step by step guide to escaping the office building, with a far more convoluted path than seen in the movie.

Soon you're in a training arena, poking fun at a variety of video games. Then you move along through the storyline, with a wide variety of focus abilities and world-changing powers.

The graphics are reasonably good. At this point in time you really don't look to a PS2 for cutting edge graphics - the XBox has such amazing titles out, and the XBox 360 is just SO sweet, that you accept what you get from the PS2. That being said, I really found the movements of the characters to be quite impressive. Some of the martial arts moves were very smooth and realistic looking.

The sound is OK for an adventure game. Some of the little audio snippets get annoying VERY quickly, but that's the way it goes. The music in general was in the Matrix theme and helped you feel like you were a part of the movie.

If you're a fan of the trilogy, then it's great to get back into that world and to be able to choose your own path - and find a new ending - to the storyline in a way endorsed and written by the creators. You can replay the game a few times, on increasing levels of difficulty, to extend your gameplay enjoyment. That being said, this is a lot shorter start-to-end then most games I own, which is a bit frustrating.

Well recommended for Matrix fans.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A suberbly made and entertaining game, November 9, 2005

By 

Helel - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: The Matrix: Path of Neo (Video Game)

This is how all movie/games should be made - with care and attention to detail. There are many things right with this game so lets take a quick look at them.

Graphics

The graphics push the ps2 to it's absolute limit, the producers even managed to get in "normal mapping" a graphical technique thought impossible on the ps2. The characters all look very like their movie counterparts, which is great news. The shadows/shading is great and has never been done to this high quality on the ps2 before. 16:9 widescreen is also included.

9/10

Sound

The music is brilliant and varies from hard beat to rousing operatic styles that really capture the mood and stir the emotions. They retain very high voice acting standards with many of the cast comming and doing voice work such as Laurence Fishbourne.

9/10

Gameplay

This is what makes or breaks a game. Think max paine crossed with a martial arts fighter. The combos and attacks are excellent and you really feel the power/grace in them. They were designed by the martial arts master who did the choreography from the films and it shows.

It's also great to see what the films left out and the many stories that occur here. Written by the directors of the movies themselves they represent what the trilogy would have been if each film was many, many hours long. Neo uses his flying to chose many varied missions over the city that are interesting and really add to the depth.

9/10

Overall

This is one of the best releases of the year, and if your a matrix fan you must get this. Even if your not it's a superb action game worthy of being in someones collection.

9/10

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