Gaming Target - GameCube: Enter the Matrix

Written by Kyle Williams on July 11, 2003

Full Review: I'm not going to say something stupid about a pill.

I came out of Matrix: Reloaded a little bit disappointed. With all of the hype surrounding the release of the film, how could I not. However, the real downer was in just how many holes there were in the film's story. Who picked up the package? What happened at the power station? Just who the heck is this Asian fellow that keeps standing behind Jada Pinkett-Smith? The Wachowski brothers spun quite the tail with their pseudo-religious cyberpunk story of man vs. machine, but there were gaping holes that I couldn't fill. Enter the Matrix, the videogame from the Wachowski's and Shiny Entertainment, is the thread that was missing from the cinematic tapestry.

So, where exactly does the virtual story fit in with the cinematic experience? Enter the Matrix tells the story of Niobe and Ghost, of the hovercraft Logos, and how they fit into the story of Matrix: Reloaded. More than anything, the game fills in all of the background story that was missing from the movie. You see events that you heard about in the movie unfold in front of your eyes, both in the gameplay and in the superbly crafted cutscenes. Completed with the same cast, sets, and production values of the movie itself, the cutscenes include most of the memorable cast from the film, right up to Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus. A lot of what you see is what happens just off camera in the film, while the rest is what I was wondering about while I was watching the movie. More than anything, they help to expand upon the characterization started in the film, effectively doubling the time that some of the characters spent on screen.

The entire Matrix experience is magnified through the groundbreaking synergy between the story of the film and the game. Unfortunately, the gameplay itself doesn't take as far of a step forward as the idea does. While the original Matrix film revolutionized the way we view cinematic action sequences, it did so four years ago. The interim has seen several video games try to capture that same effect and feeling, most notably Max Payne and Dead to Rights. Both of these titles approached the gun-slinging, fist-swinging bullet-time action sequences with success, leaving Enter the Matrix to effectively re-hash the same idea. In Enter the Matrix the focus effect is impressive, if not entirely original. While focusing, Ghost and Niobe are able to perform about a dozen spectacular looking jumps, kicks, and throws. This is easily the highlight of the combat engine and every time you run out of focus you find yourself wanting more. It is a shame that gameplay gets a little bit repetitive and that the character models are not crafted to better compliment the action.

More than anything, the in-game graphics in Enter the Matrix leave you wanting more. Nothing is specifically lacking, it is just that nothing specifically stands out, either. I'll give Shiny credit though, many of the locations are spot on recreations of movie locales. Unfortunately, everything about the game is so dark that you can't even think about playing it in the daytime. To accentuate the drab surroundings, it can be way too easy to plummet to your death do to poor sight lines and ambiguous textures. There were several times where I though I was looking at a ledge below me and it wound up being a bottomless pit. To go along with the idea of dying unnecessarily, I was really confused about the omission of a strafing function and the idea of using the c-stick to enter a first person targeting mode. Considering how many other titles use the c-stick for camera manipulation, it is very easy to get into a firefight and tap the c-stick with the intention to move the camera, only to find yourself being shot from behind while anchored in first-person mode.

One extremely unique, and addictive, gameplay feature is a mini-game of sorts, Hacking. Taking your cues from the characters in the movie, the hacking mode allows you to sit down with a virtual keyboard to "hack" your copy of the game. Stalwart players will navigate their way through the system and be rewarded with audio bytes, character profiles, level maps, and access to all of the unlocked movies from the game. This is also where you can activate cheats, use in game clues to open additional audio files, and waste literally hours at a time looking for the next hole in the system. I really have to stand up and salute Shiny for a very unique take on what is typically a mundane set of menus to navigate.

At this exact moment in time, Enter the Matrix might actually deserve a higher score than what it has earned. With all of the movie overlap, and another movie coming out in four months, Enter the Matrix is perhaps the most relevant action title for you to be playing this summer. However, removing the Matrix phenomenon from the equation, I think that history will reveal Enter the Matrix to be an adequate action title with a few impressive gameplay gimmicks. I just don't think that it will go down in time as one of the all-time classic video game titles. There are a lot of lessons that other makers of movie inspired video games should learn from Shiny, though.