
<MAP NAME="boxmap-p8"><AREA SHAPE="RECT" COORDS="14, 200, 103, 207" HREF="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1" ><AREA COORDS="0,0,10000,10000" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/thearmchairem-20" ></MAP><img src="http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/rcm/120x240.gif" width="120" height="240" border="0" usemap="#boxmap-p8" alt="Shop at Amazon.com">	Platform Playstation 2 Genre Action Publisher Atari Developer Shiny Entertainment ESRB T (Teen) Released Q2 2003

- Nice movie tie-in - Good sound effects - Decent level design - Smooth animation

- Poor controls - Very average gameplay - Lackluster visuals - Jolting music transitions - Unnatural script for the story

Review: Enter the Matrix (Xbox) Review: Max Payne (Playstation 2) Review: Shinobi (Playstation 2)
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Enter the Matrix

Score: 6.0 / 10

Usually when a game comes out with a movie license the title falls flat on its face, being a mere shell of its silver screened counterpart (even more pathetic when the game is based on a piss-poor film). Enter the Matrix had a lot of potential to buck this trend as its approach to being a game set in The Matrix: Reloaded was a novel one, following Captain Niobe (played by Jada Pinkett Smith in both the film and the game) and her crew as they go on the missions you know they went on from watching the movie but don’t actually see get done. Unfortunately this novel approach to setting up the game is ruined by the title’s poor controls and overwhelming average-ness.

Progressing through the levels can often be a real chore thanks to the controls in the game. There’s just too many functions being squeezed into too few buttons. As such, a number of your characters’ moves are automated instead of being manually controlled. The biggest pain in the ass to come of this is when you get near a wall at which point you’ll often find your character automatically pressing up against it to sneak around which can completely slow up things, especially if you have enemies on your tail. It’s even more frustrating when near an object you can climb and they automatically start climbing it when that’s the last thing you want happening. If game developers want to make any particular control feature automated they should stick with auto targeting. Unfortunately Enter the Matrix can’t even get that right. The auto targeting feature in the game is serviceable when the enemies aren’t too close, and you’re shooting them from a far, but once they start swarming your character for close quartered combat the targeting sometimes locks in on a far from ideal target forcing players to adjust their strategy to compensate for this inconvenience and often times allowing one of the other enemies to land a quick cheap shot. On the plus side, driving in the game handles really well, it’s just too bad the rest of the controls are so bad.

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What’s most frustrating about the game, though, is that it is just such an average action title. It really feels like you’re going through the motions, beating up enemies with the same old mix of martial arts and gunplay that we’ve seen for the last five or so years. There just isn’t anything new or exciting about it. Beat up a bunch of not-too-bright enemies, navigate a level, through in some physical obstacles, lather, rinse, repeat. Sure there’s a few extras like being able to drive, but it’s not enough to make

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the game stand out from all the other middle-of-the-road action games on the market. Enter the Matrix is hardly any more innovative than the infamous Fighting Force. To its credit, the game does have some well laid out levels the way rooms and corridors are setup that would have made for some good stealth missions and excellent fire fights if it weren’t for the aforementioned control problems.

The presentation, too, is very much a very average affair. The visuals aren’t terribly detailed, more on par with games released last year (perhaps a testament to the sheer amount of time the game has been in development). There’s a fair amount of texturing, and the light effects are serviceable, but Enter the Matrix is hardly a showcase of what the PS2 is capable of visually. The animation, though, is nice and smooth. This really becomes apparent when in hand-to-hand combat, as the moves are very fast-paces, but silky smooth at the same time, thanks to the large amounts of motion capture that was used during development of the game.

The aural side of the coin in the game comes off a little more shaky. The sound effects are pretty good with lots of appropriate ambient noise, quality gunfire, footfalls and such, but the music is very sketchy in how it is presented. A lot of times it can be very jarring in how it shifts from orchestral pieces to electronic. The transitions could have used a lot more work. The voice acting is decent, especially when you consider there’s some Hollywood actors in it, but the problem is that the lines don’t feel like they have the same flow as that of the movie. Frankly, the script sounds very “videogamey” and very out of place, especially after seeing Reloaded.

Ultimately, Enter the Matrix is a prime example of a good idea gone bad. If it weren’t for the annoying controls and the ho-hum nature of the game it would actually have been pretty good, but as it stands unless you are a huge fan of the movies this game isn’t worth buying.

- Mr. Nash

(July 27, 2003)