Enter the Matrix

You'll get your chance at pounding Agents, but in most cases it's better to just run...

It’s hard to keep expectations high whenever a movie licensed game reaches the stores. History tells us that these kinds of games hardly ever work. It’s the timeframe. The deadline for the game is strictly dictated by the launch of the film it is based upon, and compromises are made. This has been the main point of worry for the game based on the coolest film-trilogy ever conceived, as the hype just kept escalating along with expectations.

The second movie in the trilogy was cool. No doubt about it. But it failed to surprise, failed to embrace the clarity, the logic and the underdog shock effect the first movie had. But the effects…oh my God…And that pretty much sums up the achievements of the game as well.

The sound and view of things when you pull the focus-button is enough to keep you playing for hours

With an extra hour of film footage, shot by the Wachowski brothers themselves, who have also been deeply involved in the direction of the game, this movie-license was The One. The One to change the ever-continuing stream of lousy franchised licenses. And at some points it does. The fact that you don’t get to control any of the main characters from the film, but instead follow the adventures of a couple of peripheral characters, is definitely a change.

It gives you another angle on the story, but as this is a very fragmented experience that never really succeeds in creating a true cinematic feel, it might have been cool to get your hands on Neo, Trinity or Morpheus instead.

I know kung fu

Even though controlling the context sensitive engine can be rather tricky, you'll never get tired of trying the different moves

But let’s not go down in misery just yet. Enter the Matrix has a lot going for it. To take the best parts first, we’ll go straight to the fighting, as this is where you’ll really get your Matrix genes up and running. The control scheme is very simple. You have one button to punch, one to kick, one to throw and one to block. Combos aren’t available in the common sense, but the engine is context sensitive, making you able to do different attacks, based upon your use of the environment around you.

This gives you all the possibilities you want to try out the stunts from the film. Run up walls, grab weapons as you do summersaults, make head-first spin-jumps through windows and all the other cool moves the Nebuchadnezzar crew can do.

The key to these moves is the focus-ability. By holding down the L1-button you enter bullet-time and get superhuman abilities, if you’ve got enough juice in your focus-meter. This increases over time, which is also the case with your health-meter, making you able to heal by just waiting somewhere safe. Whether this is in compliance with the movie or just a gameplay mechanic invented to equal the balance, I don’t know, but it does seem a little out of context.

You have to see it for yourself

And here's for the real hardcore geeks among you - remember any of those DOS commands anymore?

On account of how to create the atmosphere of the movie, Enter the Matrix does all the right things. Menus, loading screens, movie clips and soundtrack make this game one of the best atmospheric achievements I’ve seen in a movie-licensed game for a long time. You even have access to some kind of DOS-prompt, where you can try to hack your way to some extra bonus material.

As a game though, it takes a lot more to engage the player, and this is where the time-pressure under which this game was created is shining through. Graphically there are ups and downs, the ups being the impressively detailed character-design, the combat-animations and the bullet-time effect, and the downs being the incredibly dull level-designs, the bland textures and pretty much the rest of the animations.

The pleasure of pulling off some of the wired up attacks of the movie, is what gives this game its quality

To see Niobe’s snakeskin jacket float around in the air, as she elegantly places a boot in the face of a guard in slow motion, is only just enough to compensate for the look of Ghost climbing a latter in the most laughable way. And even though you can shatter windows and kick down doors, the environments are just plain boring. Not to mention full of polygonal errors and bad collision detection, making you able to run straight through doors or stick your arm through walls.

Load me up

The variation is welcome, but the experience is not all pleasure, when you reach the driving segments of the game

Maybe it’s time to mention that you have the chance to live two lives in Enter the Matrix. In one life you’re Niobe, the best pilot in the fleet of Zion, and in the other you’re Ghost – Niobe’s right hand man and the best shot outside Silicon Valley. Inspired by Capcom, you have to play through both characters adventure to get the whole story, and even though there is no mentionable difference between the characters abilities or the locales through which they wander, it does give you two rather different experiences.

For instance there are some driving sequences where it is Niobe who does the driving and Ghost who does the shooting, and if you want to try fighting Trinity you’ll have to play as Ghost.

Manoeuvring the ship through the innards of the planet is less fun than it could be - but as always there's action ahead

As already mentioned the story is very fragmented, and if you haven’t seen the film you won’t get the plot of the game. Not much is explained, and all too often you get the feeling of just being put in one threatening situation after the other – without any obvious goal other than to kick some butt.

This is mainly because of the unbelievable amount of loading-time you’re subjected to, cutting up the action into very small bites – some times you get the feeling that you waited longer than you got to play. This often makes you loose sight of the objective, which, along with the bad level-design, has forced Shiny to include a very detailed instruction system, pointing out the way to your next objective and giving you tips so often you hardly get the chance to figure out the, not well constructed puzzles yourself.

A prison for your mind

The character-design is impressive, being based on numerous pictures and mo-cap recordings of the actual actors

If I said that Enter the Matrix is one of the best movie-licensed games I’ve seen, I wouldn’t be lying. This isn’t saying much though, as the list of spoiled movie-licenses goes on forever. Enter the Matrix had it all from the beginning. The license, the attention, the budget – even the Wachowskis competent direction. The only thing lacking was time, which is all too evident.

There are too many flaws, too many compromises to make this anything more than an average game. There is nothing here you won’t get in Max Payne or Dead to Rights, except for a better bullet-time effect, some dead-gorgeous fighting sequences and an extra hour of movie-sequences shot by the brothers themselves.

So there you have it: An average game with an incredible license. If you’re not a fan of the film-trilogy, you won’t get your moneys worth with this one. If you are – and who isn’t – this is still a must, if not for the game itself, then for the extra insight in the very thickening plot of the movie. By now I’m sucking up everything that falls from the brother’s hands – even this, in part due to the hype, disappointing game…