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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.
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.
None of those reviews are Official. They are user opinions, many of them from people who haven't even played the game yet (!). The lack of any real reviews is disturbing though. I'm used to having reviews before I can even see the game on the shelves...
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.