Did Anyone Pick Up, ENTER THE MATRIX?

[JohnCrichton]

I loved Reloaded, and would like some more back story... does anyone know if this game is any good?

[Nin-Nin69]

Someone asked this question on another forum and I found this answer that even appealed to my feelings towards the game. Its better than Dead to Rights, but its still no Max Payne.


Most people like it based on how big of a Matrix fan they are. Others look at the gameplay, controls, graphics, and sound. Personally I believe that this game needed to be worked on a lot longer in order to attain the reputation of the movie. Its all just hype. Plain and simple. Think of fans of Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. How many people went out and bought LotR:TFotR without reading any reviews because they knew that anying with LotR slaped on would be great. Then remember how many used copies you saw the next day becuase they were brough back from many disapointed LotR fans thus making the game worth $19.95 the week after. They could've bought the better game which was Two Towers, but they were afraid of spoilers until they saw the movie. So they waited until Dec to buy it. Silly nerds.

Enter the Matrix contains spoilers from the movie, but its a side story that helps explain Reloaded to you even better. But its still not a great game. Let me break it down to you in a few segments.

Graphics: Remember the last two Atari combacks with Superman for the X-Box and Splashdown Racing? Don't expect ETM to look any better then those two. The graphics are very choppy and look like your old faded away wrestler action figures from the 80's bouncing up and down off the walls. This game is located in the sour section in the eye candy store. The only thing that makes up for it are the cinematics.

Sound: The sound was even better than the graphics themselves. Almost everything from the movies was covered in the sound department. Its even more cool that by your punches or when you're climbing a fence, you can tell if you're carring around lots of weapons or not. The only downside was its not suppported in 5.1 Dolby surround sound. Also the fact that the cutscenes' sound had an annoying echo that you would find in games like Sin or Soldier of Fortune. If you get by that, you will like the sound quality.

Gameplay: There are plenty of downsides to this section too. The game was too easy for me to beat (even though my skills of a gamer surpass many people who claim they're gamers when they just play GTA3 and Madden) The AI is slower then a rock at some points of the game (knowing I played it on Normal). The fighting system is ok Matrixwise, but to me it feels more like Jack Slate giving his crappy 4 punch combo in Dead to Rights over and over again. The disarms and counters were good though, but only specific ones worked on different enemies. Still more tweaking needed in that area. The Bullet Time still lacks what Max Payne had, but it's done even better than Dead to Rights' "Smash into the wall face first bullet time". The thing I can't stand the most is the driving segments of the game.

When I wanted to play a video game about the Matrix, I never though of wanting to drive cars in highspeed chases. Thats not as much fun as flying around the room and empting out about 5 clips into one guy within 2 seconds. The driving controls and shooting just sucked all together and the graphics get even more choppier here. Even the classic arcade game Lucky and Wild make this segment of the game look even older than them. If I wanted to do something like that I'd go down to my local arcade and toss in $.25 to play a game of Lucky and Wild and find it even easier than ETM.

Replay: After you beat the game with both characters there is no replay value. The only catch is the Hacking and Focus modes that make you want to play the game even more. Otherwise you now know the rest of the story that was left out and you can now blab to your friends about how they're wrong and your right in your upcomming Matrix arguments.

Then again this is my personal opinion. I'm pretty much 95% right about the games I play and my opinions. Yet after you start playing this game you may think I'm a total retard and my entire review was false. All I sugest is you rent it before you buy this one. Or you could stand in front of an ETM display for over 4 hours at your local GameStop or EBX and find out for yourself.

[Parallax]

My friend and I beat the game last Friday. Good game but the driving levels suck, the last stage is dissapointing, and the fighting starts getting boring about half way through.

[ToonamiFanatic]

I have it rented from blockbuster right now. yes everyone is right the driving levels suck. I think the game is real buggy too. I got to the level waterway 2 and beat it and the game was loading the next level but the
loading screen froze. tried it several times froze everytime.the disc is not scratched at all. also at the level of the control tower at the airport
when the control tower starts exploding the screen goes black and you hear the explosion sounds repeating over and over like its hung.and when I reset the game and try it again it works sometimes and sometimes it doesnt work. bummer too i was wanting to get it blockbuster had a deal where you can buy it for 29.99 used. but I dont think I want it if its buggy.
anyone else have any of the same problems as I did? kinda seemed rushed to me with all the bugs

[Nin-Nin69]

So it looks like your better off spending $20 on Max Payne for the PC and downloading all of the Matrix/Kung Fu 3 mods and you would have more fun playing that instead of the ETM.

[David Lucas]

Hmm....

I too, rented it from Blockbuster (for free too, since they were guaranteed in stock and it wasn't in stock) and I gotta give my lil review now.

While I am one of the biggest "Matrix" fans in my apartment complex, everyone who's house I go to has the game. My roommate hates the Matrix, because everyone won't stop talking about it since Reloaded came out, yet he's been playing Enter The Matrix for about 8 days straight now. He's played through the whole thing a good 6 times.

Matrix DOES have a lot of problems though.

Fighting - This is the main selling point, and I have to admit, it's fun. Some say the novelty of "bullet time" wears off after a while, or that "Max Payne" pulled it off better. The latter is bs. Payne was a much better all around game, but ETM's "bullet time" is straight out of the minds of the originators. Some moves include Neo's one handed cartwheel while shooting ala the first Matrix, jumping onto a wall and doing a spin kick off of it and kicking guards in the head, and grabbing a guards gun, flipping him over, and shooting him with the gun as he lands.
The AI isn't real intelligent and if you have enough focus, it's pretty much impossible to get hit with bullets, some people complain about this, but ya know what?

That's how it is in the Matrix movies. Neo and Trinity have been shot at by like 70,000 bullets, only about 6 ever hit Neo and that was from Smith point blank, and only one hit Trinity....ONE. My problem is that after a while it really becomes a button masher and just "oohing" at the moves you pull off. They needed to give every single move a certain input, like a Street Fighter or something, and maybe 5-10 more moves would have definitely made the novelty last longer.

The way it stands though, the fighting is fun, cool to watch, and anyone that wants to re-enact Trinity's first or second "impossible jump" you can as Niobe does a 30 foot jump while running in the air, and Ghost does the lil ninja crane jump for 30.

Music - Right off the Matrix movies. Nuff said for the fighting scenes. There were even times when a punch that will spin a guard in the air 6 times will be perfectly timed with a beat, it's a good feeling.

Acting - Jada Pinkett isn't no Morpheus, but she still manages to kick ass. The guy that plays Ghost gives a good performance too, but there's a scene with my boy Roy and the Jet Li lookin "Seraph" where after Seraph says "You do not truly know someone until you fight them." Roy goes "All you needed to know was I was bout to kick yo ass." I wasn't really feeling Sparks though, I just can't ever accept anyone else as a operator than Tank, Link is just annoying.

Story - The second gem of the game. This game has stuff that I personally believe is required viewing immediately after watching the Matrix. Personally, I would LOVE for someone to be able to entwine the FMV scenes from this game and Reloaded for a special edition so you can watch the events unfold in the order they should have been in Reloaded. There are scenes with the new Oracle as she describes why her "body has changed", you get to see some romance between Niobe and Locke, you even find out about a certain relationship between Trinity and Ghost. Jada Pinkett said in the current Maxim, "The Wachowski's gave me a 200 page script and I thought 'Are we making another movie?', with the combined efforts of Matrix, Animatrix, ETM, Reloaded and Revolutions......the Wachowski's have quite literally created an entire world much like Mr. Tolkien did many years ago.

Graphics - Could have been a lot better, but as it stands, it's fine. Jada looks like a monkey and Smith looks like any other Agent, who speaking of which, do not leave trails while dodging bullets. But it still looks like you're part of the world, so it gets the job done, it just coulda done the job better.

Car Chase/Hovercraft scenes - They suck. All you do is shoot a turret gun with unlimited bullets blindly for a good 5 minutes straight. That's it. No skill involved.

As an added bonus, "Hacking The Matrix", for me at least, was a supringly fun experience. The basically give you a DOS prompt and you have to hack your way to the last directory with PLENTY of goodies along the way.

Bottom line, the Wachowski's made a decent game, but this is the first "movie game" that doesn't simply re-hash the actual movie. The Wachowski's gave us so much in this game, that it's really quite remarkable.

Tons of voice acting and new story, an hour of FMV, a fun little bonus mode after getting tired of the actual game, at least one new scene with Morpehus, Trinity and Neo, and Agent Smith's scene stealing self.

"I am the Alpha....of your Omega....the beginning....of your end..."

Well it was enough to be an IGN review (not same caliber, of course) but the bottom line is:

The gameplay may lack in areas, and the car scenes may suck, but there's so much extra story to "Reloaded" and even a few scenes from AFTER the Reloaded events

"Neo is caught between the Real World and The Matrix, child, Trinity can save him, but she'll have to go through hell and back." - Oracle

So if you want to experience the FULL Matrix experience once Revolutions comes out ETM and the Animatrix are must-sees, even if it's just a once-over.

[Outlander00]

anyone else have any of the same problems as I did? kinda seemed rushed to me with all the bugs


Yeah, I've had the same thing happened... Turned out that when I hacked it, it caused the game to be unresponsive and freeze on the second mission on the second to last level (when you get to the airplane).

[Funkatron]

Patch to clear animation here (http://www.fileshack.com/file.x?fid=2906)

[RZetlin]

Do not buy the game. It's full of bugs.

Check this out (From Gamecube):

http://img.ranchoweb.com/images/saouhfwv/matrix7E1.jpg

http://img.ranchoweb.com/images/saouhfwv/matrix7E2.jpg

[Nin-Nin69]

The problems of the game will be fixed on the PC verison. So thats about fix 43 copies sold and over 1,000,000 unsatisfied console gamers.

*that was my 2,000th post?! :eek:*

[ToonamiFanatic]

The problems of the game will be fixed on the PC verison. So thats about fix 43 copies sold and over 1,000,000 unsatisfied console gamers.

*that was my 2,000th post?! :eek:*

AH Crud! that really stinks. I like the game but not buying it cause of
the bugs. dont know about the pc version.be nice if they fix the bugs for the console version.

[ClockStomper]

I heard the echo effect several times on the PS2 version, but not even once on the Gamecube version.

[Nin-Nin69]

be nice if they fix the bugs for the console version.

Thats why 96% of the time companies must release a version w/out any bugs in the game. They couldn't care less for PC because you can dl the patches to fix it 1 week later on the net. Yet people will still give PC games a bad rap even though they never bothered to dl any patches to fix the problems that made them dislike the game (take Postal 2, Battlefield 1942, and Unreal2k3 for instance).

[The Dork Knight]

I'm planning on getting this game soon. Either on PS2, or Gamecube.

- The Dork Knight

[ProdigyCube]

I played it at my local gaming cafe.
The fighting and story is great, but the camera is hell. Its a good rental.

(Did anyone else notice the Office Space reference? The employees at the post office talk about the new TPS reports having cover sheets on them.)

[RZetlin]

Thats why 96% of the time companies must release a version w/out any bugs in the game. They couldn't care less for PC because you can dl the patches to fix it 1 week later on the net. Yet people will still give PC games a bad rap even though they never bothered to dl any patches to fix the problems that made them dislike the game (take Postal 2, Battlefield 1942, and Unreal2k3 for instance).

But why should be download patches?

When a software is shipped out it should be close to 100% bug free.

It's like buying a car and then being told by the salesman that the car is unfinished, but the completed parts will come in later once you buy the car.

[Beefy]

But why should be download patches?

When a software is shipped out it should be close to 100% bug free.

It's like buying a car and then being told by the salesman that the car is unfinished, but the completed parts will come in later once you buy the car.

The game HAD to be released on May 15th, so it would come out along with Reloaded.

Usually if games aren't done they're delayed, but the release date for ETM was "set in stone" so to speak, so they had to release it as is.

The following quote comes to mind: "Screw it! Ship it now, fix it later."

[Beat]

I'm saving my cash for Max Payne 2 after renting it, and finding it so-so.

[Nin-Nin69]

But why should we download patches?

When a software is shipped out it should be close to 100% bug free.

It's like buying a car and then being told by the salesman that the car is unfinished, but the completed parts will come in later once you buy the car.

Exactly, which is why I was screaming at my computer while trying to fix the sound for Battlefield 1942 after it came out, "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!?!" :eek:

They do this constantly with PC games and expect to fix it later or some fan make a patch to fix it with their Patch Makers that come w/ the program. This isn't acceptable with Console games though because:

1) You can't dl any patches.
2) Most kids who have consoles don't want to go through that kind of hassle.

The only plus is that inexperienced gamers won't tell the difference as long as it has a Popular name slaped on the front and plenty of action and/or violence.

Besides leaving this game up to Atari was a very bad mistake. I'm still a big fan of their work back in the day and suported them 100%, but now when they use that crappy graphic system they have for their recent games, its just sad. The best looking modern game they ever made was War: Final Assault. Sadly it wasn't very popular (even though I use to have a couple set up in my store and we would play that everyday and holded 4 tournaments until we had to send them back) and the idea/controller setup was later stolen for the use of the unoffical sequel to Smash TV, The Grid.

[Sandro]

One of my friends did and he can't think of any reason why someone would call this game "the best I've ever played".


But why should be download patches?

When a software is shipped out it should be close to 100% bug free.

It's like buying a car and then being told by the salesman that the car is unfinished, but the completed parts will come in later once you buy the car.

Honestly, if this is that much of a problem, stick to the console versions. Back in the early days of patches, a lot of people complained too but soon it came to be accepted that not every game is going to be perfect or even near-perfect when it comes to the shelves. I say that because not every single little discrepency is going to be fixed by the time the game gets released; there may be issues with certain types of hardware. So, if the game gets released with as many bug fixes as possible, A) it gets the game out so people can start playing it right away and B) should a problem arise, the user can provide feedback to the company and get it fixed. I guess this hails to the old saying "Two heads are better than one". You should at least be thankful that fixes for any bugs can come for the PC version vs. the console version which is pretty much stuck at the coding it's released with.

[Psycho Fox]

Honestly, if this is that much of a problem, stick to the console versions. Back in the early days of patches, a lot of people complained too but soon it came to be accepted that not every game is going to be perfect or even near-perfect when it comes to the shelves. I say that because not every single little discrepency is going to be fixed by the time the game gets released; there may be issues with certain types of hardware. So, if the game gets released with as many bug fixes as possible, A) it gets the game out so people can start playing it right away and B) should a problem arise, the user can provide feedback to the company and get it fixed. I guess this hails to the old saying "Two heads are better than one". You should at least be thankful that fixes for any bugs can come for the PC version vs. the console version which is pretty much stuck at the coding it's released with.
I hate patches since patches can get pretty big (I've seen 50 meg patches for PC games) this is unacceptable since that means spending a day downloading the patch before even playing the game.

When I buy a game I want to play it not install it and get it working.

[Sandro]

I hate patches since patches can get pretty big (I've seen 50 meg patches for PC games) this is unacceptable since that means spending a day downloading the patch before even playing the game.

I can understand this a little. I'm still on dial-up (and I assume you are as well since you refer to 50 MB files taking a day to download) but there are ways to get around this such as getting a friend with a broadband connection to download it for you. Still, could you point out some of these patches since the only ones I've ever seen break 20 MB are the America's Army patches.

[Psycho Fox]

I can understand this a little. I'm still on dial-up (and I assume you are as well since you refer to 50 MB files taking a day to download)

Yes I have dail-up, it doesn't take a day but a few hours still pretty long.


but there are ways to get around this such as getting a friend with a broadband connection to download it for you.

I already get them to download big videos for me some that go over a gig.


Still, could you point out some of these patches since the only ones I've ever seen break 20 MB are the America's Army patches.
Well Super Power patches use to be 50 but its 4th (yes 4th) is down to 40 megs. The patch for Moblity was 30 megs.

It got to the point I don't buy Windows games anymore, I wait for a port even though I have Windows since the ports are usally more stable out of the box. The Windows programers are just lazy SOBs

I remeber the first Simcity for the Amiga and the biggest flaw was it keept crashing but the problem was latter fixed by a bootdisk since it was a mem problem but I didn't have to download anything just created a bootdisk using the info techsupport gave me back then. Simple games didn't get released till it was mostly ready, what bugs there was were not that big like the bugs in Elite 2 that never got fixed but alot of fans still play it.

[Outlander00]

I find that, with the console versions, there is kind of irony with the games problems. That a game about characters in a computer program (one of which is a "bug") has "bugs" :p.

After my initial incident with the hacking (where it froze my game up early) that I restarted the game and its fine, excluding the echoing voice trouble. I can tolerate the bugs now.

But, no way am I condoning releasing a game that wasnt ready to be released.. Its still unexcusable.

[James]

The only bug I have encountered so far has been in the airport explosion - everything went trippy... I seemed to be lying on a building that was the size of a box.

Borrowed the game from a friend. Not bad. Wish I had tried it on hard as most of the time it's too easy. The Driving is dull, but I'm still enjoying the leaping of ledges and focusing.. that's really the game's only strong point. The cut scenes are dull and the plot ambles along like drunk one legged anteater on marbles.

Disappointing.