User Reviews (1 - 11 of 173)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Enter...Nothing?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The Matrix changed the way we looked at movies and changed american cinema for good. One would think that the game based on such a culture changing movie would be just as good. Unfortunately, that's not the case here with Enter The Matrix.

Enter The Matrix follows the path of two of the lesser characters from the movies, Niobe and Ghost. They pilot a ship called The Logos which is the smallest and fastest in the fleet. Their story is interwoven with the story from The Matrix Reloaded and somewhat into The Matrix Revolutions. The story is shown through live action video with the actors from the movie. All of it is additional footage directed by the Wachowski brothers. It's a good way to flush out the Matrix story and get a different perspective on the events of the movie and they're surprisingly well done. Too bad the rest of the game doesn't follow suit.

The game tries to split itself up into three parts. Driving, Shooting, and fighting. Unfortunately for us, not one of these categories work. The driving is stiff and the controls feel like I should be driving a mack truck, not a Mustang or Jeep. Shooting is awkward and aiming is a chore. Your best bet is to strafe back and forth and spray the area infront of you with bullets and hope to hit something. The game uses bullet time, but call it Focus. It's very gimmicky and not even worth using in the first place. Shoot dodging is pointless because you get hit anyway. Unlike Max Payne or Dead to Rights where shoot dodging avoids bullets, here you dive into them, making it pointless to do in the first place. The game does allow you to perform tricks like running along walls and cartwheels, but the controls are so cumbersome that it makes it pretty pointless. By the time you pull off the cartwheel you've already been shot to the point of death. And now we get to the fighting. The fighting in the game is awkward, stupid looking, and pointless. Your character performs the same combo over and over again. There's no chance for variety. So the fighting gets very old very quickly.

Mission objectives are very boring. Nothing interesting ever comes of them. The fate of the human race is in the balance and all Niobe and Ghost can do is go to an airport to make phone calls for a meeting and get busted there? Come on.

The graphics in this game are something I would expect on a Dreamcast. Not X-Box. Not even PS2. It's pretty sad. The game looks like an unfinished, demo build. Horrible textures, poor character models, and poor lighting all encompass what is one of the worst looking games in the genre. When you go into Bullet Time it just makes everything worse because it slows down the already horrible animation and makes everything that is bad stand out and make it worse. Just watch them run for God's sake. I mean...what in the blue hell is that!? The running animation is so awkward that it's comical. I was laughing as I was running from an agent because of the animation alone.

The sound in the game is nothing special what-so-ever. Infact it borders on boring. Plain bullet sound effects. Most of the guns sound the same with the exception of the shot gun. The music is boring and pointless. It's so minute that it might as well not have any music at all. It would have saved the developers some money.

Overall, it's a pretty bad game. Not worth buying at all. Maybe a rental just so you can see another story from The Matrix universe unfold. But you'd better be patient because it's going to get very frustrating very quickly.

Jameson Thottam staying away from the Matrix

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: June 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Jameson Thottam staying away from the Matrix

Movie licenses... If you've read my rant over them in my Wolverine's Revenge review, you'll realize how sick I am of the clich÷Yin them. As soon as I saw the very first preview of Enter The Matrix, amidst the hyped-up phenomenon surrounding what was "undoubtedly going to be the best game of all time, just because it has bullet-time in".
But straight away, when I realized it was going to be yet another "Third-person action/adventure featuring lots of guns" I was so disappointed. The Matrix is worthy of a lot more than a shallow action-adventure - I'm imagining a vast RPG/adventure taking players through the many ins and outs of the Matrix and real world...

Still did it anyway ~ Jameson Thottam ~
But despite my apprehensions, I began to catch onto the hype. Even highly-acclaimed European magazine Edge was saying the combat system might just be something special, so gradually I began to catch onto the phenomenon. I still decided to rent first...but predictably I completed it over two days.

Read on & Jameson Thottam
If you're reading this thinking "what the hell is The Matrix?", I'm sorry, but this is not the review for you. Look at the many movie reviews of both The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded for story details. One of the main selling points of Enter The Matrix is that the game features over one hour of authentic Matrix film footage filmed especially for the game, with a story parallel to that of The Matrix Reloaded. It was every marketer's dream - a trilogy of smash-hit blockbuster movies, a sellout game and an accompanying DVD of short films, the (admittedly better than the movies) "Animatrix".

But the Trust is out there (Jameson Thottam)
However, when I went through the game I want to clear up that I didn't find the new footage that great. I actually don't think they were filmed especially for the game, and seem more like deleted scenes from the film - there's little big-budget special effects, instead average conversations with minor characters. I ended up skipping through half of them as they were so damn boring! I think the designers made a big mistake by making the playable characters tiny supporting characters (Niobe and, erm, "Ghost") from the film - who the hell wants to know about the love life of "Niobe"?

Let's get back to the game --Jameson Thottam
So, onto the game itself. At first play, the control system is incredibly difficult. Rather than having shoulder buttons to control the camera, everything is done with the left analogue stick. At first this was incredibly fiddly and awkward, but within about an hour it felt incredibly natural. Your character handles combat with Square, Triangle and Circle and jumps with X. But now onto the selling point of the game - bullet-time.

Chalk it up to Developers # Jameson Thottam #
I've got to hand it to the developers, the bullet-time is superb. You can recreate the cool-as-ice stunts from both films with incredible ease, even in some familiar locations - remember that lobby scene from the first film? You get to play it in Enter The Matrix. The moves are handled by holding down a shoulder button and basically doing whatever you want with the other buttons - it's not tricky or complicated like, say, Tony Hawk's (to think of a game with complex controls...) and flows perfectly, just the exact way you¡¯d want it to. Hold down the button while running to a wall, and you¡¯ll run along it. Hit jump, and your character will flip off, shooting non-stop. Before you land you can flip and kick an enemy in the face, before grabbing his gun, hitting him in the head and shooting him on the floor. Eventually you¡¯ll reach the floor. Amazing. But of course this can have some major issues, and brings up one of the game¡¯s most critical flaws¡­

Wasted time.... Jameson Thottam
A lot of the time I felt as if I was randomly bashing buttons and watching a film on the screen. Now that is worrying. No matter how cool a game looks, if I feel I can pass just by pressing random buttons, there¡¯s not really any point in playing it. No doubt about it, the bullet time is incredible visually and you can feel really cool while playing, but there is no skill involved whatsoever ¨C no sense of achievement or reward.

As well as the combat, the rest of the levels consist of, er, running and jumping. That¡¯s about it. There¡¯s no real exploration involved, as a GTA1-style arrow directs you to your target pretty much immediately. It¡¯s probably the most linear game this side of Final Fantasy X, with little variety added to spice up the levels. Occasionally a brief change is put into the levels ¨C the inevitable covering with a sniper rifle level, and incredibly annoying boss battles that verge from the stupidly easy to the downright frustrating.

But don¡¯t give up hope yet ¨C there are a couple of other modes of game added in as an attempt to add variety. There¡¯s quite a lot of driving levels that quite frankly suck. When playing as Niobe you drive, and when playing as Ghost you shoot other cars. Usually these levels involve you chasing other cars through incredibly blocky environments in some lame copy of Grand Theft Auto. There¡¯s good news and bad news ¨C the classic highway sequence from The Matrix Reloaded is included. The bad news is it¡¯s driving down a completely straight road chasing a car, and the big action takes place in a following cutscene. Strangely, as easy as chasing a car down a straight road might sound, if you even crash once, you fail the mission as the other car drives ahead ¨C but the game tells you five minutes later. The levels are marginally better than Ghost ¨C I suppose shooting cars in a first-person perspective is a bit more fun than driving down a straight road.

The End Game ; Jameson Thottam
At the end of the game is an absolutely diabolical set of missions in which you captain a spaceship through identical tunnels being chased by robots. The environments are constantly exactly the same, and half the time you don¡¯t even know where you¡¯re going ¨C one time I backtracked through the whole level before realizing I was going the wrong way. As a finale to what¡¯s allegedly such a cool game, it¡¯s a huge disappointment.

Another gripe I had about Enter The Matrix was it¡¯s insistence to have the bigger action in cutscenes. Isn¡¯t this supposed to be the game of the movie, and not the other way round? I bought this game to play as the characters doing cool stuff ¨C not to watch overly blocky characters doing moves for me.

Hacking Systems {Jameson Thottam}
There¡¯s also a hacking system. Dear God. Imagine the MS:DOS window, where you type in random commands on a hugely basic screen. It¡¯s like that on a supposedly ¡°next-generation¡± console. I¡¯ll be honest, this part of the game wasn¡¯t created for me, but I attempted to get into it and it¡¯s pretty much impossible without a walkthrough ¨C there is absolutely NO explanation of what you do or how to do it. Allegedly you can unlock secret bonuses and levels from this, but you should be rewarded in a better way than your ability to find walkthroughs or guess words.

End of the Day \Jameson Thottam
So at the end of the day, Enter The Matrix is hugely fun at times with incredibly cool visuals, but loses a lot on the basis of the extra levels and the sheer shallowness of it all. If you treat Enter The Matrix like a typical bad videogame license, you¡¯ll come out happy, as it¡¯s one of the best of the licensed crop at the moment. If you treat it as the masterpiece it should have been, you will be hugely disappointed. Don¡¯t get me wrong, the bullet-time parts are fun as hell, but it¡¯s just too shallow and the trick wears thin.

Oh, and rent, don¡¯t buy. I completed everything in four days. Four. Days.

Ouch

Jameson Thottam

Fun Game, Odd Controls

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: April 06, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I borrowed this game from a friend who said "It's really fun, but the controls are awkward" so I took it home w/ low expectations. I read the other reviews and can actually se eye to eye with them. Some of the action is just mashing A-button, B-button, Y...X, X, B again. But it's really fun to look at. Grabbing someones wrist and flipping them around in a 360 or jumping off a wall and kicking them in the face etc. is what it lokks like. It's also fun to play with a friend. Later on MAC's and MP5's and M16's replace pistols and fists. The controls are weird though- Left Trigger= focus (slow mo) and Black button= Draw/Fire. But besides that it's fun.

Driving vehicles awesome?I think not!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: December 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Now,I havent seen the movies,but I played the Pc version of this game and it took me 2 days to beat,First I beat it as ghost,tried the cheats out beat it in 2 days.Then,I played Niobe,without cheats,beat it in 2 days.Now,it might be short,but if you know this you can play over the levels(well I know that for pc not sure for xbox.The vehicle driving as Niobe was crapola.But using the focus on the guy that takes you prisoner when you are Niobe,it takes a lot less(I tried doing it without focus took me an hour.)But when in a vehicle as ghost,now thats a good way to get stress off from withdrawls from blowing something up.

Wake me when its over,that quick?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: November 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First to short,tops 1 to 2 hours(thats a badthing!).Alright,next
graphics nice chacter models but enviorments are way to blad and glitchy(yet another flaw),but how could this catagory be complete without bad voice acting?,its terrible trust me.The weapons are the only reason this game is cool, the hand to hand sucks,and the driving missions are flat out retarted.take this from me dont buy this unless you have at least a 24 hour return(I say that because...its short)but it is fun for a short while.

Enter The Matrix thru Amazon.com

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 7
Date: October 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Enter the Matrix is a really good game, I don't play it because I'm getting married soon and have a dog and a cat and 2 jobs, but I really enjoyed the Matrix movies and got them all from different locations really cheap, of all the places to get movies and games from it's amazon.com cause I got my game, it's in new shape, and really alot cheaper than I would pay from in a store.
-Rob C

slow motion is amazing

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

5 stars for fun because seriously... snapping necks in slow motion wiht niobe will never get boring. This part of the game is so ridiculously awesome but the rest of the game drops it down to 3 stars. story line is very boring and levels get repetitive, also the character models are great but enviromental graphics lack the punch. I felt like I had to complete each level in less than 2 minutes the game was so hectic (which could also be a pro at times to some people). there really isnt anything special about this video game but staking vampire in slow mo is unbelievable so my advice to people is to rent this game and by the time its time to return it you will have had you fare share of breaking faces

like mortal kombat in story mode!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 03, 2005
Author: Amazon User

this is a very fast paced video game which requires many cool moves and requires split second decisoins to beat.the kung fu is awesome!you can grab up all kinds of weopons and blast the crap out of everything.theres even a pretty nifty matrix mode which lets you do the "in your own time "thing to where you are at normal and everyone else is seemingly moving like snails.this is quite likely one of the coolest games ive ever played and you should really check it out.

Terrific Graphics, Pretty Cool Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: April 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game truly has some of the best graphics in a video game. The characters actually look real. Now look, i'm not a huge fan of the Matrix series. I like them, i'm just not that big a fan. But I bought this game cause it looked pretty cool and it was cheap and it was awesome. My only complaints are the last two levels where you drive around in that thing and shoot those electric squid things and then the cheesy ending which sets up the film "The Matrix Revolutions". But anyway, I played as Niobe and the character looks real, they sound real. The shooting looks real and the focus thing is really cool. The game however is relatively easy, I beat it in less than a week and I suck at video games. But this game is really fun and I highly recommend it. A-.

Sloppy Sloppy Sloppy

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: December 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Maybe I am a putz. But maybe this is just a lousy game. The graphics are not bad, the storyline is a little weak. But the controls suck and that makes for a lousy game. In first person mode, the controls are way too sensitive, and you cannot change the sensitivity or the up down orientation. The characters do things you do not want them to do, turn whatever way they want, stick to the wall when you do not want them to, refuse to when you do. The camera goes off on an angle you do not want. In fact, playing next to walls, I have seen nothing but the wall on the screen while the character is fighting.

Personally, this game had a lot of hope. But poor controls, and lousy logic in certain areas make this game a major disappointment. Do not waste your money.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next 

Actions