Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Enter the Matrix

Written by Chris Reiter on April 28, 2003

First Impressions: What is The Matrix? Hell if I know!

You have no world. You have no life. You have nothing. The Earth, as you know it, has been a cloud of illusion that has shrouded your vision from the real truth: the one you were never meant to see. Programmed as we are, humans operate like machines day in and day out. We act in routine methods: waking, eating, working, and sleeping. If you want to know what lies beyond the door of truth, then swallow this red pill to burrow deeper into the rabbit hole. If you you're not prepared to see what reality awaits you, then this blue pill here is your ticket back to the land of dreams. Just remember that once you sleep, you'll never be able to wake up.

Essentially based on the plot to next month's theatrical sequel of the first Matrix debut, The Matrix: Reloaded, Enter the Matrix will manage to divide its story off on a tangent from Reloaded's entirety. As you know, watching the film, and then reliving it in game form or vice versa results in unavoidable spoilers nobody wants to have happen to them. To that effect, Enter the Matrix stars only two protagonists from the film, and two new ones at that: Niobe and Ghost. Highly trained specialists in both their range of skills, Niobe is the lovely lady of this two team mix-up that knows how to pilot vehicles. Ghost on the other hand is an expert in anything to do with weapons. Together, these two will set out on an adventure to stop the deadly agents of The Matrix planning to wipe them out of existence.

Everything The Matrix did and will do for moviegoers, Enter the Matrix will do for gamers alike. Combining stealth techniques, kung fu fighting action, acrobatic maneuvering, and who can forget, lots of explosive gunplay, Enter the Matrix's gameplay is looking to recreate the exact feel cinema has given its viewers. Much like in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, playing as Niobe or Ghost can sneak through hallways while pressed up against walls to get a drop on enemies ahead. But when it comes down to bruising and cruising, these two know how to lay down the punches, kicks, and fast moving weapon tactics like no one else.

Like the movie's stars, Niobe and Ghost can perform super feats such as sprinting up walls and actually shooting down bad guys while remaining balance in the air above. Max Payne may have been the first game to literally slow time to gun down enemies while in slow-mo, but The Matrix is where it all started: and in effect, Enter the Matrix will also give players the ability to do so in similar examples of Max Payne's own. One of the cooler moves though is to be the grappling system. Able to wrestle with enemies and then disarm them, players can take seize of any dangerous moment. Fighting isn't all this duo has in store however, as Niobe's piloting methods make use of themselves from time to time, when it comes down to steering the getaway vehicle. Whether you're using Niobe or Ghost at the moment, the control of the vehicle will lie in Niobe's court, while Ghost is the one able to shift out of the driver side window and gun down any agent annoyances. All in all, the duality between these partners should end up being pretty sweet.

It's a wonderful time to be a gamer, especially when technology's bar is rising all the time. With Enter the Matrix, the visuals are looking to take the game to the next step. Character models for one thing are being fitted with enough craftsmanship so that they actually resemble their real world counterpart in every way. Just as well, the environments will play a pivotal part of the visual flair Enter's got going for it, as a lot of the game world will be destructible through driving and crashing, or shooting it all up. It's you who'll make that demolition look miraculous, though.

One area that movie to game conversions have been covering a lot lately is the transition of each character likeness through voice-overs. Enter the Matrix is one game that won't let its fans down, as the cast of the movie's actors/actresses will be there with you as the voice talent of your favorite Matrix good guys and bad ones as well. Additionally, music from the movie is being inserted through the gameplay production, so that everything Matrix will be everything you had hoped for and more.