Enter The Matrix

In the war to save Zion, what part will you play?

NA release: 14th May 2003
EU release: 15th May 2003
JP release: 19th June 2003
Developer: Shiny Entertainment
Publisher: Atari (NA/EU), Bandai
NGC Magazine Score: 65%
Mods Used: Widescreen Hack

Enter the Matrix was a highly ambitious game. It wasn’t just a tie-in game to a film, but a game made alongside the film, with its own plot that focuses on different characters. Not only that, but an hour of live action footage was shot alongside the film for greater cohesion between the film and the game. If it had worked, it would have been spectacular. There was one major flaw to this plan: the release date had to be the same as the film, and there was no way they were going to delay the film for the game.

And it really does feel like an ambitious game that ended up with a load of cutbacks late on in development. Each level feels like it should be a single large area, but are cut up into lots of segments at seemingly random intervals. Some sections can be quite large, while others are a single room. There’s one section in a chateau where you go through an empty corridor, have a loading screen (with save prompt), load up a entrance hall, but the door your need to go to is two steps forward, which then loads another loading screen (and save prompt) less than two seconds after the previous one. It really disrupts the flow of the game, especially as many are supposed to feel like chase scenes.

The hand-to-hand combat is a lot of fun, so when you do get into the game, there are spurts of enjoyment. The game captures the feel of the film’s fighting style really well, with the ability to activate slow motion to perform over-the-top moves. The shooting, however, is the opposite, as you just shoot in the general direction and hope the autoaim works. Part of this is due to the single analogue stick controls, as the c-stick is just used as a button (either activating first person mode or the action button, depending on setup). One of the setups lets you use the shoulder buttons for strafing, bringing the controls up to the standard of Shadows of the Empire. This also means that you can’t look up or down (other than the clunky first person mode where you can’t move), which is a bit of a pain for finding the path you need to take in levels or lining up awkward jumps.

To make matters worse, the whole big deal regarding the integrated story didn’t amount to much. The live action scenes just feel like deleted scenes from the film, and not its own part of the story. Part of the story involves a key that turns out to be pointless anyway, and when the game does do its own thing, it doesn’t do much with it. At one point you’re captured and free yourself. You suddenly have a wooden stake and have to fight vampires. Yet not a single character in the game talks about there suddenly being vampires and nothing is explained (until a throwaway line in the third film). It’s just a random inclusion and made stranger by nobody talking about it within the game itself.

Then, after you help Morpheus with a mission (although you don’t fight alongside any of the main cast), you have a long chase scene of getting away, followed by a pretty bad real-world chase scene where you fly a ship (or shoot, depending on your character of choice) and the end is just a trailer for the third film, no conclusion for the game’s characters, which just makes for a very disappointing ending.

Something special that Enter The Matrix does is how you unlock bonus features like cheats and it’s multiplayer mode, which is done through a hacking interface. This is a full on command prompt style system and you have to navigate the directories and input commands to find the hidden stuff, like you’re actually hacking the game.

It’s a real shame that Enter The Matrix didn’t work out, the game wasn’t given as much importance as it needed, and poor controls and shoddy vehicle sections just let it down. The concept of expanding a movie universe via video games is great, but it needs to be done on the games terms instead of trying to rush it for a simultaneous release.

Fun

This lack of detail is highlighted when you’re playing as Niobe. Her character model, in particular, is superb. With a slinky, shiny snakeskin coat and some really detailed hair, she sticks out like a sore thumb. The problem is accentuated because the characters’ relationship with the world around them feels frustratingly inconsistent.
Geraint Evans, NGC Magazine #81

Remake or remaster?

Stich the levels together and improve the controls with proper dual analogue and actual aiming for the guns..

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to buy Enter the Matrix.