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Enter The Matrix - Patches, No Reviews?
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out a patch for the PC version of Enter The Matrix, just a couple of days after its release, and a FAQ which rather horrifyingly orders you that "The Vampires should be dispatched in the rooms you find them in" to stop the game from crashing completely. If you add to this the almost complete lack of official reviews, do we get a still-decent game that simply happened to stealthily launch in the week of E3 (when nobody was around to review it), or a rushed license that's deliberately trying to take advantage of gamers who buy based on subject matter? Spoiler-free opinions welcome, especially from those who've bought the game.
...in order to stop the game from crashing completely...
The article submitter has seen games crash *partially*?
May we never see th
Honestly people, a Quick Google Search will reveal All
I'm not Seth.
I bought it. It sucks. Graphics are terrible, gameplay is like a half-assed version of Max Payne (which was SUCH a better game), and the hour of additional footage is complete crap (not to mention it's all encoded in shitty low-quality DivX). Plus the game's performance is absolutely horrendous. That's $50 down the drain.
Their websites don't even support safari! It loads up fine, then you suddenly get redirected to a page saying sorry, your browser is not supported, with links to IE, Netscape, and Opera.
wtf?!
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
I'd just like to say that I had to re-edit and dumb down the review cause it wouldn't go through the lameness filter. Big Words=Junk Characters.
Ok guys, this is my review of Enter The Matrix. Hope you enjoy.
The action is very well done. Combat moves look amazing. Try to think of all the combat moves that were done in the matrix. You can do them all. From neo's cartwheel gunshooting to trinity's cannonbal move. It really feels like you are controlling a zionian. The story is awesome because it starts right after the last flight of the osiris (the animatrix episode) ends. So it feels like everything thats out for the matrix is connected. Not a bad way to sell stuff imho. While you are enjoying the awesome action you also enjoy an amazing musical score. Its freakin amazing!! I have noticed that framerates get very-low in large area locations, but I think the recent patches will fix it. Its games like this that keep giving me a reason to say "I can live with windows and all its MANY faults as long as I can keep playing these games".
I'm sorry if this reads
weird, I've been doing
bonghits all night.
[Just Shut Up and Do What I say]
Note, my comments apply to the version I've played, that being the XBox version.
Well, the game has some really brilliant moments (running like hell as various civilians turn into Agents all around you), but there are a bunch of annoying glitches that pop up every now and then.
* You can get stuck in walls, floors, and other geometry,
* you occasionally run into invisible walls that you have to walk around (?!),
* occasional odd physics things like your character wigging out when landing on platforms,
* random annoying enemy spawns, usually right behind me where there's no way somebody could naturally have gotten there...
Also the Metal Gear Solid style "hide up against a wall and peek around the corner" is really picky about what sort of walls you try to hide up against.
Overall, what I've played through has been fun, but pretty frequently you'll run into some sort of glitch that is relatively insignificant but takes away from the experience.
--riney
p.s. The "hacking" interface with the DOS prompt is kinda fun.
I've just picked up the PC version, and finished playing through what seems to be the first mission. Here are some thoughts that I have so far:
- The intro was awesome, featuring some video (DivX) from the movie
- Controls aren't really intuitive. I dunno how to explain this. I've got a feeling it was designed with a console controller in mind, as compared to mouse and keyboard.
- Very, very short intervals in between level loads, although the load times are really short.
- Yeah, I'll agree with the NY Times on this one - the level design (so far) is pretty uninspired. There were a couple times where I ran in circles (under a time limit duress) because the level didn't give me a good... flow.
- Voice acting is great.
- The animations are pretty cool - I think they'd be a lot more fluid if my computer had a little more horsepower.
- Awesome in-game cut scenes.
- Great music. Sounds like it was ripped right from any of the movies.
All in all, I wish I had bought it for one of my consoles instead, but I've definitely played worse games. My recommendation? If you aren't anti-console, get it for one of 'em, but don't play it till you've seen the movie.
On the XBox this game rocks!
The 60 minutes of extra footage looks like DVD quality to me.. Is it divx as well on the xbox?
People talking about bad graphics?? Have they even seen screen shots??
I posted this on another forum several days ago.
A word of note before we begin: I've only played a developers build. It's the complete game, and AFAIK, it's extremely similar to the one that's being shipped out for retail. There may be minor differences, but most of my beefs with the game are not ones that can be fixed through minor bugfixes.
Save your money and spend the $50 or so on something more worth your time. Worth a rent if you've got that opportunity in your area, especially if you're interested in finding out the (supposedly) deep and intricate parallell plotline that only it will contain.
As far as the game is concerned, it's somewhat like Max Payne, except catered towards the lowest common denominator. In other words, it's got piss-poor graphics (which run choppy anyways, even at mid detail, and are full of lots of bugs), the fonts are ugly as hell, the Matrix "screen" (green, reversed katakana characters sliding down the screen) is pathetically done (not just bad, but absolutely pathetic--I've seen screensavers do a FAR better job), the gameplay isn't too hard (if you stand for approx. 5 seconds, you start to regen health and "Focus" (bullet-time juice)), and the controls are clunky at best. For instance, there's no crosshair to aim while on foot (although there's a fairly crappy autoaim), in the car, your crosshair jumps 10 pixels at a minimum when you're riding shotgun and shooting, and in the car while driving, it handles like a souped-up Yugo on ice.
There's a few interesting things however. Some of the moves you can do are downright nifty. However, they aren't nearly as cool after the fiftieth time you've used them on the same level. There's a nifty "hacking" mode available from the main menu. I've done a bit of tinkering in, and it's kind of fun. It basically drops you at a DOS-ish shell, and you tinker around from there. However, the keyboard tends to flit between being unresponsive (missing keystrokes entirely) or over-sensitive (typing letters twice). This wouldn't be so bad, except there's no tab completion (for us BASH lovers) and there's no command history (so you can't hit up or shift+up for instance, to recall the last command you typed). This makes it a bitch to type long commands, especially since you have to type full directory paths for everything (there's no 'cd' command). Once you get used to it's quirks, however, it's worth fooling around in. Finally, the FMV is pretty good. The acting's as good, or better than in any other game's FMV. Also, they used a good codec, so there's no blocking, bleeding, or other graphical glitches in the FMV. I have to say, however, that I've been unimpressed with the meager bits of story I've seen so far, although admittedly, I'm only ten or so levels in.
I suppose had they had more time to work on it, it could have been an amazing game--one to go down in time as a classic. Alas, this was not the case. Also, in my opinion, Shiny was probably not the best developer to have chosen for the project. They aren't exactly known for their top-quality engines, and I would have far preferred seeing them use Max Payne's completely capable engine instead of trying to develop their own under limited time constraints.
To be honest, I'm horribly disappointed. With the incredible franchise they've got going, I expected more. After being wowed by The Matrix, having heard amazing things about The Matrix: Reloaded, and having seen the incredibly well-done Animatrix episodes, I've been nothing but impressed with the franchise. I'd been expecting the world from Enter the Matrix, having heard that the Wachowski Brothers viewed it as just as integral a part of the storytelling of the Matrix as the movies were. Now I'm beginning to feel that that was just marketing bullshit.
Rating: 4/10.
From a post of mine later on:
Interesting.
I cranked all the details up to max and entered the game, just to see how the graphics looked with full antialiasing, max resolution, etc. Oddly enough, a
No comment.
This game came out just a couple of days ago, you have to admit it's a little bit early for a patch...
Makes you think they didnt even finish the game properly, kind of reminds of a game called Ultima IX
Or Diablo II, or Morrowind, or Neverwinter Nights, or Unreal Tournament 2003...Seriously, releasing a patch nearly the day of release is Standard Operating Procedure for video game development nowadays.
No comment.
WTF? Did Dubya also start the Office of Homeland Video Games? Where does one go to become an "Official" video game reviewer?
I have a lot of respect for the folks who made Earthworm Jim and Sacrifice.
Ok I got this game today on an impulse buy, over at BestBuy while looking at dvd's. I has very high hopes for this game due to all the hype its generated over the past few months in development. I was lead to believe that the game was developed in in parralle to the movie, and they intermingle somehow. That might be true given the cinematic sequences everywhere in the game (aka sceens from the movie). Granted I've only gotten into the game for about an hour, and this is my knee-jerk reaction to it thus far. First off, the controls are static, and cannot be adjusted to my personal tastes. The Xbox version is designed around the s-controller, and that all fine and dandy if you have a late generation xbox, but I got an early generation that came with the bigger (original) controllers. It would be highly desirable to modify the layout of the buttons so that they made sense in my configuration. Secondly is the choice to go with a 3rd person mode, as opposed to a first-person shooter style. Granted the game actually can jump between a 3rd, and 1st person mode, but the 1st person mode can not actually do anything except orbit the cross-hairs around the character. To move (aka run/walk/crawl) *requires* you be in 3rd person mode. I think they only have 1st person mode for shooting weapons like sniper rifles with the true affect only achievable in FPS mode. The game doesn't allow you to arbitrarily save your progress in a way conventional to most other games, like pausing the game, and saving it. No, you are only given the option to save at specific check points in the game. The game is only a single player venture, which means there's no fun to be had in a death match with my friends!
On the positive side of things, I can say that the game looks awesome! The lack of FPS is made up for in some really awesome character moves. Being able to put your characters back up to a wall, and peek around corners is refreshing. The punch/kick combos are enjoyable to mixup, and the matrix rule-bending is just like the movie; the characters have a bit of extra power in their kicks, and punches, and the style they use is like the Yee Woo Ping style kung-foo as seen in the movies. The music is good! I enjoyed listening to that techno band from Las Vegas (Crystal Method?) during the first sequence of the game, and I'm sure they got other good music too! The game is in High definition to the order of 1080i, and thats really good for an Xbox title. It might be the first I've seen go that high res.
All in all I'm about 50/50 on this game thus far. As I've stated above, it really annoying to play with the controls configured they way they are, but the quality of the game seems to *almost* makeup for it. I definatly rate "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" much higher, but I guess they are two differnet types of games (apples/oranges).
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
Where does one go to become an "Official" video game reviewer?
Buy a printing press and manage to get at least a couple myriad subscribers.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Makes you think they didnt even finish the game properly, kind of reminds of a game called Ultima IX.
Put the crack pipe down, my friend! Ultima IX had been in development for years longer than this Matrix title. Why, part way through, they started over from scratch! That shows dedication.
They have finally patched all of the major bugs (less than a year or so after release!) Sure, if you patch over any saved games, you're pretty much screwed. But that's the majesty of the Ultima universe. The avatar never tires of fighting evil, and bugs and poor patches are evil, yes?
Hmm, this was supposed to be about the Matrix game, so, vaguely on topic... The game is virtually unplayable on the PC. The graphics are unremarkable, but I'm somewhat impressed by the way it can bring down XP Pro inside 5 minutes of gaming. Audio clips range from good fx to trash-can resonating dialog, that could be the crappy SB Live, though. And I didn't expect much based on the Infogrames label. (Still remembering the totally crappy Drakkhen game I got suckered into buying years ago).
Remember, there is no bug.
Mod me down and I shall become more trollish than you can possibly imagine!
...buy a game before it has been on the shelves for about a month and you can read a bunch of reviews by magazines and real people. I violated this rule once in the last five years for Master of Orion 3, and it turned out to be crap. If a game is really good, you can afford to wait another three or four weeks; if it is bad, you're better off letting other people find out.
...when you actually enforce programming deadlines. This game was rushed to be out on the same day of the movie, but as we all know often it's simply not that simple with code!
Lets hope they get it patched up pretty soon - I'm looking forward to playing it.
Anyone know if it contains movie spoilers? I heard it's linked with the plot etc. so I don't want to play it until the movie comes out in the UK (21st)
What I'm disappointed with is the lack of support for the hacking console. There are a few urls referred to as places to look for more codes for the hacking console, but one of them has never been a registered domain and the other just has a graphic about the company being shut down. I was really looking forward to having an interactive portion outside of the game.
A planet where apes evolved from men? Long live the apes.
I always head to GameRankings.com to check for reviews of games. They even give you an average of all the review scores collected.
There still aren't many reviews, but at least there are a few. See Enter the Matrix reviews:
PC
XBOX
PS2
GC
I just saw this posted on The Shack...
AllOutGames.com has a review out.
They give a 78% to the PC version.
"Anyway, long story short... is a phrase whose origins are complicated and rambling...." - Abraham Simpson
I came across 4 gaurds, all standing close together, who started shooting at me. Two of them I killed right away, one did NOTHING but stand there, and the fourth start to crouch and bob up and down. I went and walked right up to the two remaining gaurds and got no reaction from them.
Complete rubbish.
I'm about half way through the PC version of the game, and the impression that I'm getting is that of an average console port. The fighting/shooting is very automated, which lends the controls a very imprecise feel. You are never totally sure whether your shots will hit your target, and although the game makes very liberal use of Autoaim, it just doesn't feel right for a PC game. Graphics-wise, it leaves a lot to be desired. First of all, it was somewhat difficult to get the game to even run well on my computer. I have an axp2200+, r9700 pro, 512mb pc-2700, and an sb audigy, and during the fighting the frame rates would drop off the face of the planet. For several days I scoured for fixes, and 2 patches later I was still getting incredibly low frame rates. Luckily someone posted how they fixed the same problem. (http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&thr eadid=33686163) Turning the sound acceleration down a notch seems strange, but it worked, and my framerate is incredibly fast even with 4x aa and 16x af.
Anyway, the graphics themselves are plain. The car and weapon models are simple, the textures are plain,and I've noticed a few clipping issues. The fighting animation is totally awesome though, and the hand to hand combat is a lot of fun.
I must say I am a huge fan of both Matrix movies, and the game keeps the feel of the movies for the most part. So really I think how much enjoyment you will get out of the game is tied in to how much you enjoyed The Matrix and Reloaded. I loved them, and despite a lot of the games' flaws, the universe that it's set in is what keeps me playing. If you didn't like the movies, or thought they were just okay, give the game a rental.
You were probably higher than a kite.
2003. Atari produces several million copies (4 million, to be exact) of a game, based on a blockbuster movie that hit the theaters at roughly the same time. The response is less than lukewarm. The movie is The Matrix Reloaded.
If I were Atari, I'd try to buy some cheap desert property now.
The Xbox version is a total blast.
IHMO, I prefer just going to this one page, Enter The Matrix Reviews. I Really like Game Rankings because it lists links to various reviews by differant sites.
For those who are too lazy to click the link, the average rating is 81% from 35 articles.
I've just finished playing the game for the ps2 yesterday... it only took me 24hrs to finish it. I'm so disappointed with Shiny for putting out this game which feels half finished, uninspiring and buggy. I was expecting some tougher bosses, i didn't even have to move the cursor to shoot at anything. rating: 5/10
I bought the PC version the day it came out. It's probably one of the most disappointing purchases I've ever made. Why? It essentially boils down to the fact that it's a Max Payne ripoff, except it doesn't play nearly as well as Max Payne. Some of the levels are ridiculously difficult (anyone who's played the Chinatown levels knows what I mean) while others are really easy.
The sad part is this game could have been so much cooler. As it is, it's riddled with bugs, graphical glitches, and a really annoying sync bug that makes the audio go WAY out of sync during some of the rendered cutscenes. This is not a finished game, which is surprising because it's been in development for almost 2 years. One would think they would have had enough time to finish it.
That said, the game is a must-play for devout fans of the Matrix. The game follows the path of Ghost and Niobe and takes place during the Matrix Reloaded. The plot intersects with the movie over various parts of the game, and stuff IS made more clear through playing the game. In short, the story is pretty much an essential part of the Matrix saga, at least as much so as the Animatrix.
They've even included a "Hacking" game, which is a relatively short and easy CLI puzzle where you have to "hack" the Matrix, but it can give you some nice goodies like weapon drop points, cheat codes, and a secret level. It's relatively amusing, though unfortunately it's not totally finished yet. The game redirects you to search a few websites to find some information, but it seems as though those sites aren't up yet. One of them (which now redirects to the game's official homepage) even sported a "This domain has been registered by: " temp page.
In short, this game was obviously rushed out the door before it was finished. The fact that there were patches available the day after release is a testament to that. No game should be released with this many bugs or a control system this flawed. The PC version of the game seems like it was an afterthought, a port of the console versions that wasn't quite given the care that it should have been. Which is disappointing, because it turned what could have been a spectacular game into simply a mediocre one.
I haven't played it and I won't, but a couple of friends have, and they haven't reported any problems whatsoever. So it might be virtually unplayable on your PC, but not on the PC. There's a multitude of possible reasons ranging from actual program bug to PEBKAC and a combination of both.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
...It's very obviously rushed to get out on the deadline.
I bought the PS2 version to get a better frame rate than my PC and because I figured it would be easier to play with the PS2 controller. Well the later part was true, but I'm not so sure about performance. It gets major frame lag in large areas (inexcusable for a console game!). To top this off theres plenty of other bugs (echoing voices in cutscenes, bad clipping, invisible walls) that just shouldn't be there. And as mentioned alot of the level design is very uninspired, especially towards the end. The driving parts of the game are also _very_ tedious.
On the positive side of things
The game starts off pretty well and the first half of the game is pretty good. The controls (on PS2 at least) are pretty intuitive after a short while. The fighting
The 'Hacking' mode is a welcome bonus (similar to the old Neuromancer PC game, if you haven't played it, go to Underdogs now!), although it can be a little cumbersome on a control pad, tab completion is really needed there.
Overall, it's still a must have game in my opinion, just hold off until the price drops a little and don't get your hopes up.
This game is boring and buggy. The presentation of the story is crude. I bought it with no expectations of novel gameplay and was still disappointed.
Save your money. My copy has already been sold back to EBX.
People actually wasting money on this game or people actually liking it.
I wasn't about to drop cash on it but I wanted to see what it was like, so I did the next best thing. And I'm glad I didn't buy it. I installed it, played it for an hour, said to my self, "self, man this game really sucks". Then proceeded to uninstall it and throw-out the cd's I used to burn it. Waste of good plastic. Probably the only "coasters" I've ever burned on my PC.
I have the Game Cube version. I thought the game was pretty cool. Was it the "best" game I ever played? No. But it was fun, and the extra content was cool. I didn't experience any of the "bugs" people are talking about on the other platforms. Graphics: They could be better but the animation is fairly realistic. Sound: Gets a little repetative but it's well scripted Gameplay: Controls were easy to grasp and very responsive AI: Computer AI was pretty diverse (police do really stupid stuff and look dumbfounded when you run on the walls, agents casually dodge your hits and then beat the snot out of you). Difficulty: I thought it was a little too easy Overall 6/10
The policy of the United States is worse than bad---it is insane. -- Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy(1959)
Three of my friends were playing it all week-end, and they seem to like it. Looked pretty cool to me, although the replay value didn't look as good as something more free-ranging like Halo or the Tom Clancy game. The levels all seem very scripted.
I played the XBox version at my friend's house on Saturday, then went out and bought the PC version for myself on Sunday.
The XBox version's controls are a bit more intuitive. Also, you don't have to worry about choppiness. Strangely, I thought that the movie clips looked better on the XBox, too. However...
On the PC the in-game graphics look much better due to the higher resolutions (I play at 1024x768). I gave up on the mouse keyboard controls because it was much easier to button-mash with my Wingman Rumblepad. I've only played the first level (post office), but I am really enjoying the game. Sure, it's very easy in parts, and maybe the graphics aren't state-of-the-art, but isn't gameplay and fun more important?
This game is FUN. I absolutely love beating the crap out of people in and out of focus mode. It's an absolute blast, and the animations for the different moves are tremendous. As I said, there's some button mashing involved, at least until you get the feel for how to create combos. They should have included a training mission so you can learn all the moves (like Splinter Cell) instead of dropping you right in.
I have an AthlonXP 1600+, geForce4 ti4200, 384MB ram. I recommend it.
Again, I say: ***HUGE SPOILERS***
The failure of this game is almost tragic in my opinion, because there are moments that are just fantastic, and would've made it an instant hit had the game not been so unpolished. The first of these of course, is encountering an Agent. And they do it in an early, shock-value fashion. The Agent smashes through a door you're opening (this is in slow motion of course) and you're not even sure what's happening because you're falling backwards and can't see the door.........well, as my character falls onto his back and out of the way, the image of that man in the black suit and sunglasses at the door comes into view, and I freak out a just a tad, trying to regain control and fight. Unfortunately for me, the game is true to the fact that fighting an Agent is hopeless unless you can blow him up from a distance or something. But trying sure is fun. You can last a while fighting the inevitable, getting in some good hits if you're good, and the hand-to-hand fighting is so cool that it truely does sadden me that the game is such a failure in other ways.
The fact that the AI drives so badly that car missions can be impossible without cheating, absolutely ruined the recreation of the highway scene. Seeing Morpheus actually on that moving truck, fighting an Agent while we drove alongside them, would've made me giggle like a schoolgirl had I not been busy bouncing off the wall and flipping periodically. By that mission, I had gotten used to the other glitches. I also had no muzzle flash on my gun, textures that seemed to 'grab' onto others, get stuck, and stretch around, and civilian cars passing through ours like ghosts.
Anyway, I could go on listing memorable moments........so I will. Taking the hacking thing far enough that I got a simulated chat with Trinity (ok, so the chat was just me answering yes or no questions), a call from Morpheus saying I should be careful calling certain numbers.....and I think the guy who played Ted in Bill&Ted praised my r33t $k1lls.
Kung-fu fighting Trinity. She sucked. And she wasn't a very good fighter either. I'm sorry I couldn't help myself.
Being chased by the Smith family.
Others I can't remember.
Still, I can't emphasize enough that this does not make the game worth $50. I'm mostly focusing on spoilers because people have heard the bad side, and probably won't get to experience the few plusses there are.
they say software is never done, only released...
If you check the user reviews of "enter the matrix", you will notice the console versions are coming off pretty well with lots of praise, meanwhile the PC reviews are furious people ranting about glitches with lots of swearing. Apparently console versions have better graphics more special effects, better and more responsive controls and a secret multiplayer mode where you can fight against a friend with focus mode and everything. (some even speculate you can play as NEO!)
Aparently the teams decided to spend more time in some versions than others, and guess who got the end side of the deal? thats right: the PC! because they can ship lots of patches right after the release! so what we've got is a glitchy and not quite tested BETA version of the game, which is extremely inferior in just about every way to all the other versions! (I've heard even the video looks better in consoles, since they used a DVD instead of crappy CDS)
Anyway at the end, we DO have a way to get FIXES for the games numerous bugs and eventually MODS for it, but in the mean time.. well, we just got screwed.
So this time, if you want to check a "finished" version of the game, you will have no choice but to find a friend/victim with a console and gently borrow it. Otherwise you will have to wait until the development team actually finishes the damn thing and get the patches for it, which could take several weeks.
Someone should start a petition to have a Special Edition version of the game.. Let's face it.. the game is unfinished. This would give the developers time to fix the bugs.. improve the textures, which are bland and boring.. add some lighting effects, cuz there are none.. and just polish the game enough to be memorable. Maybe throw in a couple of bonus levels like Splinter Cell for PS2 did. Frankly, I think Shiny should hand development over to a better production group, but short of that, they should at least complete they game the Wachowski had envisioned. It shouldn't have been released... not like this.. not like this..
I think ETM has gotten far more flak than it deserves.. Not being a fanatical gamer these days I still try to play games in between. (The problem to me seems to be the games, none of them hook me for more than a couple of hours at the most.)
..
Anyhow, after a friends recommendation I tried ETM out, and I was pleasantly surprised ! It is unlike all the other people here say, playable, the graphics are definitely good enough to give a good feeling of the Matrix, and the plotline is action packed to say the least.
The people who are dissing the movie clips etc are horribly out of line. The quality is clear and nice, and one has to think about the space requirements. After all the game did not ship on a DVD-ROM
A lot of my friends have been all over this game too, and have been using several days to complete it..
In my book I would give it 4/5.
life+universe+everything=42
IAAVGP (I am a video game programmer).
I'd like to disect your argument, if I may.
First, the issue of never buying a game. While that may save you some money, it is the reason why most games are crappy and require 12 bagillion patches. If we don't make any money on our products, we will not continue to make them. I make video games because I want to. But, if I cannot make enough to eat and live, I will find other employment. So keep stealing from us, and we'll keep turning out crap. You vote with your dollars. If you like a game, go and buy it. Why do you think that EA has negotiated so many AAA licenses? Because they sell to Joe Idiot (of which there are many), but not the hardcore gamer (of which there are few) that most of us want to make games for.
Then there is the issue of games costing too much. I believe this is false to both the developer and the consumer. Let us consider the consumer. Do you go to the movie theater to watch movies? Even if you are a student, the price per hour of that movie is approximately $3. I would therefore suggest that if a game costing $50 gives you 25 hours of enjoyment, then it is a better value than the movie (at $2/hr). Then there is the developer. A moderate budget is $2.0M total (over two years). That means that in order to make our money back, we have to sell at LEAST 50,000 copies (box costs are not included, and run typically 10-15 dollars per). A title that sells 200,000 units is considered to be exceptionally well sold. Making profit on titles is what gives us a chance to try new and different things for the future.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
I bought it for XBOX, and I can't stand it.
I bought it mainly because all I heard (granted from the creators) was how cool their "Hacking the MAtrix" was going to be. I being a fan of that sort of thing believed them.
Hacking the Matrix is nothing short of a simple "Do A, opens B, Do B, opens C, Do C, Opens D...". There might be a branch in their, and their might be a "you landed on on jail, go back to start do not collect 200 dollars".
It _LOOKS_ like it's going to be cool, but it's _NOT_. And if your early in the game, it's worthless. All the future maps are locked, you can't drop weapons until you unlock the map and find the code. And you can't do any additional "trainings" (like sword fighting) until you win the game.
I was hoping for some sort of OS emulator that was more than just a dumb down shell script with facade commands. I could think of a lot of ways a programmer I could make a cool "more real than real" hacking game (put buffer overflows in the read.exe and play.exe command. teach a new generation about machine code. make up some simple BS machine code language for a fictional processor, leave a manual about it in a hidden directory).
So who cares though, it's just the hacking game that sucks right? That was more a freebie anyway?
Wrong.
Next thing, and I can only bitch about this on the XBOX version, but the Controls SUCK. You can not assign actions to buttons. You have simply 3 prebuilt configurations to choose from. I HATE IT WHEN DEVELOPERS ARE LAZY LIKE THIS.
If you want to be able to strafe on the XBOX, then you have to move the FOCUS ability to the 'thumbstick button' (thumbstick click). The left thumbstick is how you move mind you. Focus is like 'the force', and you have a limited amount, So you really want to be able to enable it in very precise increments at a precise time. It really should be on a trigger finger, and dished out while performing a movement + jump + and firing weapons (which your thumbs should be doing). There is NO CONFIGURATION that you can choose that allows this to occur.
Also, if you want strafe, then their is no way to use the "TARGET LOCK" command. Sorry, it's not mapped to ANYTHING.
Another annoying thing is the First Person mode. You go into First Person mode my moving the right thumbstick. You can't move while in FPS mode. It's really annoying. Not so much the not moving in first person, but the fact that I can't control the camera while i'm running in third person mode. The combination of my movement (left thumbstrick) and my camera control (right thumbstick) should ALWAYS merge together and perform some sort of vector change. This then gives you the ability to let the left thumbstick left/right act as strafe.
Think of it, as the right thumbstrick controlling your head (where you look, where you go when running straight).
Instead in the Enter the Matrix, you control your character like it's a tank.
Maybe they did this to try and free up your right thumb to push a bunch of useless kick+punch+jump combos. But i must rather of had combos with trigger fingers and direction.
Maybe i'm spoiled by HALO, Metal Gear Solid and other games, but the controls for Enter the Matrix really ruined it for me.
As for the kung-fu style action (a'la Matrix) everyone is say is so cool, well it's neat. I'll give them that, but it has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PLAYER. I did a few tests where during some 4 on 1 fights I just started mashing combos of focus+jump+movement and my character would destroy them. It takes the same amount of skill as "hack the matrix" took. Press A, Press B, Press C, Press D. Wow, look at those amazing manuvers i just did, i'm so good.
This game sucks, and if you've played enough games long enough, you'll see and know why within the first 5mins, and confirmed after the first hour.
-Malakai
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
I was going to buy Enter the Matrix, but after reading these reviews, I'm well and truly put off.
If you don't care much for the Matrix connection, and are looking for a fighting/shooting/bullet-time fix, you can probably do a lot worse than try Bloodrayne, which is pretty much Max Payne with Nazis and lots of flying limbs. There is a demo out, and it's quite easy to figure out if you will like the full game from that one level.
Alternatively, there is a fantastic Kung Fu mod for Max Payne, which makes it almost a whole new game (almost, because in the last level or two the enemies are just too tough for Kung Fu).
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
simoniker:
This wasn't just a "license" title. It was written and directed by The Wachowski Brothers themselves and is meant to supplement the events of Reloaded.
The rush, as others have pointed out, was because the release date had to coincide with the release of the movie.
--
My comments and opinions completely reflect those of anyone and anything I am remotely associated with.
A proud xbox owner, I'm on the Airport level of Enter the Matrix, and thus far there have been some great moments.
For example, there was a section of a level where the character on the 2nd floor surrounded by SWAT teams with machine guns. In order to get to the 1st floor, you can take the escalator, or, in true Matrix fashion, take a running leap over the edge of the balcony in bullet-time, guns drawn, firing at the enemy on the way down, hitting the ground, tucking and rolling and making a quick escape.
Woof.
The further into this game I get, the more fun I'm having!
Hi,
Isn't your sig quote attributable to Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) rather than Douglas Adams?
Agree with Morrowind, it's a good and really engrossing game, but it has too many broken areas (uncompleteable missions) that could have been fixed with a little testing (and what's with the poorly limited draw distance? Even without optimisation most gaming systems can cope with more polys than the default gives you - power users should be able to increase it as far as their system can bear).
I'd rather have waited till till the bugs were gone and the engine had been a tweaked a little (the draw distance really being too poor, with some optimisation the XBox can do much beter) and had another 10 UKP slapped on the price (after all this game has *amazing* amounts of gameplay time and genuine replay value, I wouldn't have cared if it had been 80 UKP).
I'd love to see a new Morrowing with theses issues fixed - with that kind of game you could even simply increase the texture resolution and model detail (up the polygons, add a few more T&L effects), fix a few bugs and re-release the game in a a couple of years.
What If I told you that the entire 'Animatrix' Episodes are available to view within the game?
What if I told you you could play the game as Neo, Morpheous, or Trinity?
Is it still a waste?
This game is LOADED with extras and other cool stuff. The Warchowski Brothers are HARDCORE gamers and went to enormous lengths to make sure that you get your money's worth on this game.
Of course, you'd have to use your brain a bit to find the hidden stuff I mentioned above.
P.S. Read the PC requirements for this game before playing it. My money sez that you need to upgrade your PC.
Dolemite
________________________
Save the World! Use a Quote!
It's owned by a company called 'RedPill'.
Also, you have to use your brain a bit for the hacking console.
It doesn't matter to me what character I play the game as. The gameplay is still crappy and not worth my fifty bucks. And I can download the Animatrix episodes for free.
P.S. Read the PC requirements for this game before playing it. My money sez that you need to upgrade your PC.
I never said the game was slow. I just said it was crappy. The framerate is great, it's just that the graphics suck. Even if the graphics didn't suck, the gameplay still would. The fact that they both suck just makes me miss my $50 even more.