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2.9 out of 5 stars (121 customer reviews)

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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Enter the Matrix (PC) Review, May 31, 2003

By	Alan V. Dunkin (Richardson, Texas USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

After playing through Enter the Matrix you wonder if the last fifteen or twenty hours or so you spent playing it was really worth seeing a few extra scenes hacked (literally) out of the Matrix Reloaded movie or enduring the tedious driving/flying chase scenes, thinking all the while how this could have been a much better game.

It's possible I'm being a bit too harsh. Then again, Infogrames - scratch that, make it the renamed company Atari - spent reportedly (according to BusinessWeek) around $80 million US (including the purchase of Shiny Entertainment, the developers) to create this cross-platform extravaganza of mediocrity.

4 CDs and 3 gigabytes of installation love later, it's high time to finally play this highly anticipated game. In essence, Enter the Matrix is the Matrix Reloaded Sideshow, unraveling bits and pieces of the movie's plot that got no or very little celluloid time. I won't reveal any of it here except the game starts out with an attempt to retrieve the drop-box package left in the Matrix by the crew of the Osiris, the ship featured in the anime DVD tie-in, the Animatrix. The package, later revealed as a video message, contains intelligence information that the machines are boring their way to Zion, the rebel stronghold in the "real world." This information is then revealed in the movie.

The interweaving of the plots between the movie, the game, and in a few parts the tie-in anime DVD, is really one of the bright spots here. The plot of the game unfolds in conjunction with the movie, though really not much of the real plot of the movie is really revealed, which can be disconcerting, seeing that the game is said (I never timed it) to contain about 70 minutes of footage shot during filming of the movie. When you finish a level or get past something important, you'll see more of the footage - or footage of an in-game cut scene, which can be really annoying.

Players can pick and choose which character they want to play, Niobe or Ghost, and the game is somewhat different, depending on the character. For instance, in the driving scenes, Niobe drives while Ghost shoots. At another, Ghost acts to distract enemy snipers while Niobe navigates around them to get inside a power plant complex.

Much of the game therefore consists of a behind-the-back third-person action game that really resembles Max Payne. The 3d environments are, like the rest of the game, a mixture of good things and bad things - most of the environments seem empty and very nondescript, while others (typically smaller environments) are well-crafted and detailed, featuring polished marble floors and the like. A few feature destructible objects and structures, though they seem to have no real purpose except to make players say "wow that's cool."

Gameplay is very combat oriented; you'll frequently encounter a host of human civilians, guards, police and military types, as well as the occasional agents and other rogue programs. Enter the Matrix offers a variety of weapons to use, as well as a fair number of hand-to-hand combat moves. For instance, you have your standard hand or kick-type attacks and combos, as well as disarming attacks, behind-the-back attacks, and so forth.

On top of all that, there is the slow-motion "bullet-time" Focus mode you can enter, which allows your character to do more fantastic or hard-hitting moves, aim better, run on walls, and other nigh-impossible things. You only have limited focus points that regenerate slowly after time (health is the same way incidentally), so use it wisely.

The use of weapons can be a bit of a problem - in default third-person mode aim is very much accomplished by an internal auto-targeting mechanism, so you don't really get to aim but aim generally, your character takes care of the rest. Since enemies go behind cover frequently, a number of shots will typically go astray. This means going to first-person mode, though it hardly feels interactive at all - there's no recoil, just a stream of boring bullets; remember Duck Hunter? You can't move forward or backward in first-person mode either.

Since combat is important, the interface should be equally up to the task, but it isn't. In fact it feels clunky at times, and the third-person camera switches to inconceivable action-camera-style views and other angles at the worst moments, sometimes even blocking your view. It sure helps that the enemy won't try to attack you while doing these super-cool moves.

All of this would sound cool generally, but there is a lot of things that really drag this game down. The driving sequences, on a whole, really [stink]. It's hard to conceive of a worse gameplay mode Shiny could have put into this game. The use of Focus mode suddenly makes everything very choppy, while it should be smooth and even - like Max Payne. Some levels feature unlimited hordes of people to fight; others have the typical console-game boss creature. There is only level-based saving, no in-game saves. Some of the stupid plot points of the Matrix Reloaded make their way into the game, more than once. It's very, very easy to waste ammunition, and you'll also spend a bit of time running away from something. Finally, there's even an homage to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Okay, the tip system is very handy (though it gets in the way at times) and there is an entire Hacking mode which is devious and harkens back to old DOS days, letting you unlock things in the game before you get to them, if you're good enough).

After tallying off some good and bad points, you can see where this is a pretty cool game, though it's got so many negatives against it that it's very hard to recommend. If you're a Matrix fan, sure, why not, but maybe this is better served as a bargain bin game. Still... 80 million, for this?

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53 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice but there are better, May 14, 2003

By A Customer

I got my hands on and played a copy of the PC version. Sad to say I was disappointed. It was pushed as the next great game and the graphics going to be great and cool and all this and that. It just doesn't live up to the hype.

I recommend renting and trying it before you buy it. All your getting is a single player game (no mods, expansion or online gameplay) for a high price and not all that great at that.

Story is somewhat slow and confusing. I haven't completed it yet so we will see but so far nothing to make me sleep with this game under my pillow. You are given tasks in the beginning but not told why or what for so you don't understand.

Graphics were a disappointment on the PC. This game was made for consoles and the PC was an afterthought. Knowing this, the graphics will probably look fine if not ok on the consoles (probably look the best on the xbox). It would have been nice for the graphics to take advantage of PC video cards and processor power.

Sound is not a distraction and actually is the best part of the game. Adds to the mood but is more often instrumental taken from the first matrix. There are some times when the music is heavier and makes you feel more pumped up and ready to take on all the bullets. Best part of the game (which is sad)

Controls are wierd. Perhaps this is because of it being on the PC but I think even with a gamepad it would feel wierd. Your character runs EVERYWHERE. Kind of annoying when going into a tense situation. Guess your not suppose to sneak or be careful but go in with guns blazing. Which would be cool but the fighting is reduced to button mashing. There is no training center or dojo to learn how to master fighting, focus (bullet time) or shooting. Instead you are given 'tips' as you move through the game. The controls are clumsy and found myself at times with my back to ememy strugling to face them to fight. Seems the game would rather show you how cool you look than let you actually do something useful. Seems to be very big on looks but lacking on substance.

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The concept is innovative, but ultimately the game isn't, September 23, 2003

By	Derek G (Redneck, South Carolina) - See all my reviews

If one good thing can be said about Enter the Matrix, it's that the Wachowski Brothers were a major creative force behind the game. A 244 page script and an unprecedented 60 minutes of original cinematic footage was produced so gamers and movie watchers alike could learn the story of Ghost and Niobe (played by Anthony Wong and Jada Pinkett Smith.) Their time on the big screen was limited, but their experiences in the game supplement the Matrix story and fill in gaps the movie left out. The concept is pure genius, but the finished product ends up a failure because it's just not fun to play.

From the start of the game, you get this unnerving feeling that developer Shiny Entertainment was in over their head. The game engine itself has sub-par graphics considering its high system requirements and the number of bugs are atrocious (more on that later.) I knock off another star for the bloated 3.6 gigs of hard drive space this game requires. Running music and cutscenes off the CD's could have saved a lot of space, but we're not given this option. Hard drives are cheap, but this is ridiculous.

After spending the half-hour/hour necessary to dump this behemoth on your hard drive, you'll find yourself starting out watching a movie clip involving Ghost, Niobe, and their cynical ship dwelling sidekick Sparks. The clips are faithful to the movie and, to their credit, Shiny added well done computer animated cutscenes of their own. Your first mission involves infiltrating a post office to pick up an important package. From this point, Sparks whines about the difficulty of the mission (as he does throughout the game), you choose whether you want to be Ghost or Niobe, and the game begins.

As you proceed through the post office, prompts flash on the screen which provide "tips" on performing various functions such as controlling character movement and performing special fighting moves. It would have been nice to simply hit a function key instead of Esc, select option, scroll down, select tip, etc... An extremely linear game, you're subjected to following a green arrow at the top of the screen which points which direction you should be headed, punching and kicking cops and security guards along the way. After reading twenty tips and punching and kicking 100 security guards as you follow your little green arrow, you find you have returned right back where you started. In fact, you'll run in circles three times just to complete the first level. In another level, you run from one end of a level to another to flip a switch and turn a conveyor belt on. Halfway back, you get a prompt saying someone turned the switch off. As a result you have to retrace your steps and repeat the process all over again. Other levels have you climbing staircases all the way up to the top floor of some factory, running to the other side of the room, then climbing staircases all the way back down again. This mind-numbing backtracking is a persistent problem throughout the game.

Character movement is mostly annoying. Yes, you can slow things down to the now famous bullet-time and hit special key combinations to perform cool moves, but here's the problem. It takes a lot longer to perform these moves and you're subjected to so many faceless, nameless cops and security guards that it's quicker just to run up to them and mash buttons until you knock them out and move on. Considering lost health restores automatically by standing still long enough, it's easier this way too. Even more problematic, the game tries to think for you when you've got your guns drawn and you end up firing at stuff you're not even aiming at. In one level, I was supposed to destroy three control panels. I stood pointing directly at them at point blank range while my bullets were wildly firing in every direction other than straight ahead.

Bugs are prevalent. You'll run into clipping problems (heads and arms appearing through walls) and unrealistic gameplay issues, like a door or elevator not working until you've killed every guard in the room. In one level, I got to my objective (a telephone) before everyone was eliminated and found myself completely unable to continue the game or even move away from the telephone. Best I could do was shut down and start over. Sound issues are a problem for those with EAX and cutscenes are lower in volume than the sound effects. You'll find yourself playing with the volume knob a lot. At times, the game muted my sound card for no apparent reason at all. A patch addresses some, but not all of these problems.

Most laughable are the so-called driving sequences. Pretty much the only difference between playing as Niobe or Ghost, completing these levels is an exercise in frustration. As Niobe the driver, the view is limited and the controls are sluggish. As Ghost, riding shotgun with a shotgun, Niobe's driving is so bad you're safer keeping yourself inside the vehicle. Strangest of all are the other cars on the road, violently gyrating left and right even at a complete standstill. You'd think they were filled with horny teenagers.

After about an hour of this inane running, killing, running, killing, and following the little green arrow just to watch the next cinematic, it dawns on you that that's all there is to this game. Out of sheer boredom, I entered a cheat so I could avoid the guards and get through the cinematics. Even the current Hollywood fad of girl-on-girl liplocking (Monica Bellucci and Jada Pinkett Smith) couldnt keep me interested.

All this said, I still think the Wachowski Brothers had the right idea. If the right developers (Id, Valve, EA, Monolith) were involved, this could have been impressive. Unfortunately, Shiny Entertainment couldn't hack the Matrix, and neither should you.

Hope the review helped.