Gameplay
Gameplay
Background
First off, this is a movie tie-in in the truest sense. The Wachowski Brothers, responsible for the Matrix Trilogy, decided to make what they claim to be an ‘innovative movie’ that included three elements;
1. The actual Movie
2. The Animatrix (animated short features)
3. Enter The Matrix.
All are linked, and apparently you can only understand the Matrix Reloaded fully if you buy (and maybe play) Enter The Matrix. Ingenious or insidious? You decide. Ingenious if you are interested in making loads of cash out of the biggest franchise since Star Wars…
The game revolves around two characters who feature in the new Reloaded film but have a very small role to play in it. Play the game however and you discover that the role of these characters is very important to the whole Matrix story. Again why they weren’t competent enough to put these minor details in the films is beyond me, ok it’s not *that* much but anyway…
The two characters in question are named Niobe and Ghost and are played by “real actors” who perform “real stunts” with Niobe being played by none other than Mrs. Jada “Will Smith” Pinkett. Woohooo! You are sent on several missions that link together with the film, such as retrieving a package that shows the human city of Zion is about to be attacked by the machines, the human arch-enemies.
“Unfortunately, no one can be....told what The Matrix is...you have to see it for yourself”
Enter the Matrix is your run-of-the-mill third person perspective for the most part, with a few vehicular sub missions and a hacking feature thrown in to add a desperate bit of variety. You start by choosing either Niobe or Ghost and are plunged into an extremely well guarded post office with this first mission easing you into the kung-fu action. When you start you will find that all the familiar controls are present for this kind of game, run, jump, punch and kick. The way you fight enemies is a bit more advanced than the usual third person beat ‘em up though. Continuously tapping the punch button for example will put together a very simple three or four hit combination attack, whereas on the other hand if you throw a well timed kick into the middle of the combo then like other good 3D beat ‘em up the combo changes to something a bit more special. However, in this game the combos seem to be there for ‘special effect’ rather than affecting a specific outcome for the battles.
A game based on The Matrix wouldn’t be complete without all the cool slow motion shooting scenes and bullet-time special effects now would it? So simply hold down a button to control your character in “focus” mode. In this mode everything slows down and you can do all the cool Matrix stunts like run up walls, cartwheels while shooting and generally double your fighting capability. This is the nicest part of the game, however in saying that it has been done to death on other games, and ironically much better too (see Max Payne).
The weapons in the game are fairly varied with sniper rifles, automatics and even a samurai sword if you are good at the hacking feature which I will come to later. The major flaw with using weapons in Enter The Matrix is that when you eventually run out of ammo you automatically switch back to hand-to-hand combat even if you have more firearms in your arsenal! This often left me in some frustrating situations mid way through a crucial fire-fight where I didn’t switch to my firearms in time.
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