User Rating: 9.4 | Enter the Matrix XBOX
I’ve just beat the game in 2 days with Ghost on normal difficulty. Just wanted to get that out of the way so I don’t sound like a 13 year old that loves anything “Matrix”. The game is awesome. It kept me wanting more and more throughout the entire process of kicking cops in the head and getting the crap beat out of me by agents. The whole experience of it after seeing the movie is simply unbelievable. And to top it off, you get never before seen footage. What the hell more could you want… other than fluid animation and game play. ;) Anyhow, let’s start this review off. It’ll be short because I want to go play it more. The game play is… interesting. Sometimes you love it; sometimes you wish you were playing checkers with your grandma instead. When the game play is working in your favor you’ll feel so much in control you’d think you were Neo himself. You can do just about everything you’ve seen in The Matrix 1 & 2. Uppercuts, fast punching, extreme kicks, running on the walls, summersaults, you name it. The feeling of pulling all of this off is sometimes beyond words. It’s also a blast to even watch someone playing the game it’s so perfect. Other times (just about everything other than fighting) is a complete disaster. The characters run like they have a 6 foot pole up their behind and a lot of the times your character will stop dead in its tracks because you slightly touched a wall. Kind of like when you played the original Wipeout for the PS1. My character even got “stuck” in a wall during a fight with 2 Agent Smiths. Something you never want to happen. I was really close to beating the level and then all of a sudden Mr. Smith himself had a lot of free shots on me until I was dead. You also get to play driving games and shoot Sentinels. Whoever programmed these parts of the game should be erased by Neo. It’s quite possibly the worst game play I have ever experienced. Anyhow, buy the game for the fighting… nothing else. Okay, on to graphics. Again, sometimes you love em, sometimes you think, “Why did I buy this XBOX if I keep getting PS2 graphics?!” The colors are really bland. It’s a Matrix game so I’ll let that go. But the textures are terrible. The only part I thought was nicely done was the mansion level in the mountains. It has nice lighting and great textures. Everything reminds me of Resident Evil graphics. Oh well, again, you’ll be caught up with the fighting so much you’ll forget about the ugly polygons. The only nice looking character in the game is Niobe, partly due to her kick ass hair. Sound is again good sometimes, bad other times. During a fire fight you’ll love the sound. Reminds me of everything the Matrix stands for. But, again, during the stupid driving levels and Sentinel levels you’ll wonder how “the boys” ever agreed on letting the sound producer to release such crap in an awesome game. The cars sounds like my friend’s 15 year old minivan that has 200k miles on it that is going 40 and stuck in first gear. It’s so bad that during the driving games and Sentinel shooting games I turned off my stereo, no joke. You’ll really appreciate the sound once the lovely orchestra starts in during a firefight or a slow motion ass whomping of an agent though, the real Matrix stuff. Okay, so basically, your either going to love this game or hate it. Or, you’ll just keep playing it just to see what other moves you can pull of in bullet time. I’ve started the game over again playing with Niobe on the hard difficulty. Now that I’ve mastered the moves I really have an appreciation for the (fighting) game play. All in all, go buy it if you’ve watched both of the movies and have fantasies of Trinity… which you’ll get a good chance of “testing” your abilities with. Dude, why are you still reading?! There is unseen footage and Mr. Smiths to kick your ass waiting for you in Enter the Matrix. Now back to Niobe. Cheers! 
