Story
At an unspecified point in the future mankind will wage war on the machines but the machines will be the stronger army. Backed into a corner man will burn the sky to block out the sun (the source of power for the machines) and the machines will be forced to look for power elsewhere. They decide to use humans as their source of power and to keep them docile they key them into a supercomputer V.R. program called The Matrix. That is all that is known of mans history, but a few months ago a group of soldiers who had escaped The Matrix managed to track down a computer hacker named Neo. They believe him to be The One prophesied to destroy The Matrix. Neo's powers in The Matrix are impressive and he is able to tip the balance for mankind. However a ship known as The Osiris has found something out that they need to report to Zion. The crew of The Osiris succeeded in getting a recording into a postbox inside The Matrix but have not been heard from since. 2 soldiers named Ghost and Niobe are given orders to Enter The Matrix and get this tape from the post office before The agents can find it.

That's the best way I can summarize the story as nothing coherent ever really happens. If you've seen the films then you'll be OK, your just going about in the background, but if this is your first stab at the story then your going to find that the writers never take the time to explain what is going on. This is understandable as The Wachowski's promised the games story would be events of the films from the point of view of the smaller characters but I still feel a little time explaining why you're doing each level wouldn't have been out of the question. Even as someone who's seen both films I was disappointed by the games story though. Do not listen to The Wachowski Brothers propaganda about how you need to play the game to learn the entire story from the films and Animatrix shorts, they're talking complete rubbish. You learn nothing new about the world of The Matrix and instead have to simply play through an even worse written version of The Matrix Reloaded. There's plenty of mindless philosophical babble, a chase with the Agent Smiths and a few moments where the Seraph says "In order to know someone, you must fight them." That by the way still makes as much sense, but in the end the story introduces you to nothing new.

Graphics
I was a little disappointed with the graphics in Enter The Matrix. The screen shots I'd seen promised some amazing next generation graphics to rival a high powered PC, and while they are very good, they're not that good. Character models are amazing as you could really spot the details in faces, clothing and whatever. Unfortunately a closer inspection revealed that the rest of the graphics were a little rough around the edges. Cars had square wheels, unnecessary doors were painted onto walls and any other small things you care to mention that have drawn you out of every game you've seen them in.

Sound
Now the sound was the area of the game that didn't disappoint me at all. The background music used has the exact same style as the music used in the original film. It really get's under your skin and gives the game a level of tension that the gameplay itself never earns.

Even the voice acting is good. It comes in as a little better than the acting in the films, which I admit was not amazing, but in a videogame setting works better. Ghost spouts off all of the Zen like philosophies but sounds much cooler than Morpheus. Niobe is voiced by Jada Pinkett Smith who was one of the worst actresses in the film, but she's on a par with most videogame voice actresses so she fits in better here. Other than that there's the occasional guest spot from some of the films stars like Carrie Anne Moss, who each do exactly what they did in the films, but like I said before it fits in better in a video game.

The Game
The first thing I noticed when playing Enter The Matrix was that the control system was horribly rushed. It was extremely difficult to get a correct aim when using unarmed combat and getting the hand of strafing a nightmare. However I've never been one who has been bothered with a bad control system, don't know why but I can pick up nearly any game and be playing it within 5 minutes. With this in mind I was able to enjoy the game despite it's control system and to be honest the opening level was worthy of 5 stars for someone like me. It's a perfect recreation of the atmosphere found in the first Matrix movie even down to repeating some of the set pieces. Within minutes I was beating up guards and using the bullet time effect to either run up the walls or pull off some of the games more impressive moves. Then when I reached towards the end of the post office level and found myself in the middle of a familiar lobby shootout I felt my spine shudder.

Unfortunately from that moment on that game goes down hill. There's still some good set pieces, such as a rooftop chase involving an agent, but it's no longer a constant rush of adrenaline and you spend most of the game feeling the repetitiveness of every action. You simply run around the levels beating up the guards, occasionally deciding to show off using bullet time but never get to do anything more varied than climbing over a fence to shoot some more guards. There's even one extremely long level set in the sewers which is too narrow to even bother with bullet time which leaves the whole thing as a bog standard shoot'em-up.

Mercifully this is the only instance where the standard levels become totally un-playable, and thanks to it's knack of recreating the atmosphere of the movies these stages are actually very playable in small doses. Sniping is as satisfying as ever particularly when it involves getting the better of an agent, but it is becoming old news now and there's nothing revolutionary added to the sniping sections to distinguish them from Goldeneye, a game that came out years ago. However the sniping is just the standard feature, it no longer stands out like it used to but there would be complaints if it were left out. The rest of the time you've got a little innovation in the form of the bullet time, I say a little because whilst Max Payne used the idea already this game represents the next step. Using bullet time actually opens up a wealth of new moves from the basic run up the wall that I mentioned in my first paragraph, right the way through to a spectacular array of throws and other unarmed techniques. The satisfaction achieved from succeeding at these moves even makes it forgivable that the one on one boss battles are kind of tedious and loading screens way to frequent.

Unfortunately this area of the gameplay only takes up about 70% of the games running time (and that's at most). The rest of the time is shared between driving sections and standard shooting, neither of which are particularly exciting. The ratio of how much of each you have to endure depends on which character you chose at the beginning, Ghost spends more time shooting whilst Niobe drives. I chose Ghost because he was a cool hero and mercifully he get's to do the shooting. The shooting is a far better way to spend your time than driving as you don't even have to concentrate on the screen. Unfortunately this is also it's biggest weakness, as the enemy AI in the sections makes it impossible for you to lose, and Niobe's AI behind the wheel is so bad that it gets plane frustrating when she drives straight into a car you just shot up even though she had ample time to swerve.

This is understandable though when you're driving yourself. The cars handle more like bricks than cars and you find yourself constantly fighting the joy pad just to pull off a minor turn. This is particularly annoying on timed levels as you crash in moments where you had absolutely no control over the vehicle and so lose the entire level. It doesn't add to the sense of urgency, because there is no sense of urgency in these levels. On the normal driving levels you will find yourself crashing every few moments, but never seem to run out of energy and the timed sections are just a series of trial and error where you die in the same places until you beat the level by chance.

At the end of the day neither of those sections are particularly interesting and so I can't bring myself to give the game a good score. Do I still recommend the game though? Well no, if it were a film that gave me this much enjoyment I'd just about recommend it if you had nothing better to do. However the chances are that a playstation 2 game will not be costing you £3.50 and this game is in no way good enough for £40. I recommend renting the game because most levels are fun but repetitive. However bosses are dull, controls a pain, both driving and shooting horrible, plus it can be completed before you return it. That's why I recommend it as a rental, but still only if you have nothing better to play.


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The Matrix Reloaded
The Animatrix

Recommended: No

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