Brevity
05-01-2003, 08:07 AM
Is Shiny's game all that? We jack in and tell all...
April 29, 2003 - At times like these, a game journalist must wonder how he or she (in this case he, last time I checked) should go about honestly previewing a game; in this instance, Enter the Matrix. On the one hand, it's all I can do to keep the hype from the movie and the game from entering my brain like a Matrix Sentinel ripping into the Nebuchadnezzar. It's like I need a pair of lead earmuffs to stop the hype from seeding itself in my brain. The movie -- I mean the two movies -- that will quickly pounce on the public this May, and in the fall, are continuing to build in the public's consciousness like few projects have done in the past. Both seem to simply gain momentum from the mere existence of the other (not to mention the Animatrix trailer).
And it's all falling into place. It's as if Infogrames and the Wachowski Brothers have foreseen the future, a prophesy that reads: Enter The Matrix will conquer all.
Or will it? Because of the other hand, for a guy like me, a guy who helps to produce hype on games he actually likes, Enter the Matrix is a troubling game. At the game's debut in Hollywood this winter, the unveiling was a pure piece of Hollywood production, glitter and hype. While I was wowed by the Animatrix trailer, I was un-moved by the early preview build. Usually, a game is either fun or not, and it's those games that find themselves in the middle that make it strangely interesting to cover. Enter The Matrix. Do I like it? I hate the feeling that I should like it -- that I'm supposed to like it -- and I despise the notion that it will sell because of the power of the movie. I hope that the game turns out well, and that it sells on the strength of its gameplay, and only its gameplay. So, what should I do? Does the game suck or rock? What does a preview of this monstrous game really mean at this point in time?
Having been given a preview of Infogrames/Atari's game (we played the PS2 version), we have spent a good deal of the afternoon playing it. Developed by Shiny Entertainment, creators of games such as Messiah, Wild 9s and the Earthworm Jim series, Enter The Matrix takes a straight action-adventure route, replete with lots of dramatic, in-game cutscenes. The game is a sort of in-between, read-between-the-lines-of-the-movie title that takes two new characters Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Ghost (Anthony Wong) and puts you into their stiff leather boots. Yet it doesn't tell the movie's story at all, which is why you'll have to see the movie, play the game, and watch the Animatrix trailers to get the whole picture.
We are sorry in advance that we cannot reveal much about the story, but to be honest, we essentially have been forced to sign the most monstrous NDA (non-disclosure agreement) we have ever signed, thus preventing us from revealing the story's twists and turns. To be fair, any mention of the story would, or at least, might reveal plot elements. So, you'll just have to wait.
Shown from a stiff, panhandle-like third-person perspective, players can select either character from the beginning and start playing through a series of action sequences in large, empty builds. Shiny used motion-capture to re-create the likeness of the movie characters. The result, at least in this preview and surely in the final version, is a mixed bag. The models do indeed look realistic and so they present players with the feeling that they are being put into the role of the movie characters. That's a start. Having said that, the characters move in peculiar if not entirely awkward ways. They move with a robotic motion -- in stiff, unrealistic mechanical movements. Heck, they run like a downgraded T2 from Terminator 2.
The characters fight with the same kind of motion. Only in the fights, the martial arts moves look slightly smoother and a little more fluid. (Because of fast action combat, it's also harder to distinguish the awkwardness, even if it is there.) The fighting is very…average. It's designed to be super easy, and it succeeds in being ridiculously so. One button is for attacks, another for kicks; one is for jumping, and another for action (like pressing a switch and opening doors). Pushing two buttons simultaneously enables players to grapple and throw. It's quite satisfying the first time you use Bullet Time to break someone's neck. Using the digital pad, players can switch weapons and by pressing action again, they can sheath them. Players can easily kick a group of enemy booty by simply smashing the same buttons over and over again. It's no-brain combat, designed primarily to look cool.
Honestly, the combat system's simplicity seems outright stupid at first, but as the levels progress and the enemies increase in numbers and strength -- and as you start fighting agents -- the simplicity of the combat actually makes sense. You want to kick as fast and pull off Bullet Time moves quickly and then get going. So there is no fuss about it. Visually speaking, the combat grows far more interesting when one learns to "Focus," or using a term gamers are more familiar with, when they enter "Bullet Time."
The best thing about the preview build we played is Bullet Time. With two simple meters on screen (health, focus), players build up both as they play. So, you might lose Health and Focus, but by simply staying out of harm's way, both meters slowly return to 100%. (This sounds like it would make the game very easy to play, but given the amount of armed enemies one faces simultaneously, it makes sense.) By pressing a button (on the PS2 it's L1), Bullet Time slows time, your enemies' bullets, and your movement -- but not your bullets. Also, it enables you to avoid enemy bullets because you can actually see them flying through the air. In the PS2 version of Max Payne, one could not genuinely see the bullets well enough to catch that sweet effect. Here, the effect of bullets flying through air, pummeling enemies and whatnot looks very good and clear. Strange things do happen in Bullet Time, though, like being able to turn in midair around a corner. I guess "there is no spoon," right? Thus, anything is possible. Which makes me wonder when I can fly like Superman (HEY! If Keanu Reeves can do it, why can't I?)
Still, Bullet Time is the best part of the game. Remember how you could run up walls in Devil May Cry 2, yet there was no gameplay to back the effect? Here the effect is the point, and it actually enhances gameplay. Run toward a wall in Bullet Time and dodge your enemies' attacks and their bullets, land behind them, and Kung Fu their asses from behind (hey perverts, it's an action game, so quit it already). Or run at a slant toward a wall and use it to jump through the air in an impressive acrobatic move. Or simply hit Bullet Time and dive head first toward an enemy in a twirling corkscrew move with guns a' blazing, killing off your enemies in seconds. Playing around with this effect, in all its iterations, creates a deeper (not terribly deep, but moderately deep) kind of combat. What's more, it implants the feeling that you're "playing" the movie. Thus, to a certain extent, this aspect of the "movie-game synchronicity" works.
As far as level design goes, these stages are all large, mostly non-interactive, and empty. Whether you're driving or shooting, the levels we played are plain and simple, massive in size, but void of things to do. Most knobs, switches, computers, and doors render nothing. There are tons of empty rooms with nothing in them. For their size and structure, one would think there would be more interactivity, but apart from being able to knock books off shelves, there isn't really anything to interact with. You essentially walk through levels, fight, and find more doors. Cutscenes provide more information and, always, the next item to retrieve or door to find. To be fair, you can break glass, climb metal fences, and climb on many objects. And to be honest in addition to my fairness, none of that is terribly revolutionary.
Another level we played puts you in a car, as Ghost or Niobi, while the other character is at the wheel. It's essentially a rail-based shooter. You lean out the window and blast oncoming police cars as the driver burns though the city streets driving like a complete maniac. At one point, the car lifts up on two wheels because it's going so fast and turning so hard. Another level features an Agent. You run across a series of rooftops and through broken down buildings as the digital bad guy runs you down. It's actually enjoyable to play. Using Bullet Time you jump from rooftop to rooftop (a la the first set of scenes from The Matrix with Trinity), fight police and escape the Agent. It's fun.
Visually, Enter The Matrix is good-looking in some ways, but in most ways it's merely average. As explained above, the character models are well done, and the facial geometry is excellent. The characters' eyes, mouths and cheekbones are well built and realistic. Niobi's hair, for instance, is damn cool looking. The bullets streaming from your guns in Bullet Time are tres sweet, with warbling air effects, smoke and "contrails" whizzing away. But the levels are all plainly textured, mostly empty, and colored with a dull set of colors (grays, ivy greens, browns and the like). The game is very dark. While the color scheme may be appropriate to duplicate the look of the scenes set in the Matrix in the movie, in general, Enter the Matrix doesn't in any way impress visually. It's not ugly by any means, nor is it gorgeous. It fits somewhere in the middle, neither startlingly impressive nor painful to the eye.
April 29, 2003 - At times like these, a game journalist must wonder how he or she (in this case he, last time I checked) should go about honestly previewing a game; in this instance, Enter the Matrix. On the one hand, it's all I can do to keep the hype from the movie and the game from entering my brain like a Matrix Sentinel ripping into the Nebuchadnezzar. It's like I need a pair of lead earmuffs to stop the hype from seeding itself in my brain. The movie -- I mean the two movies -- that will quickly pounce on the public this May, and in the fall, are continuing to build in the public's consciousness like few projects have done in the past. Both seem to simply gain momentum from the mere existence of the other (not to mention the Animatrix trailer).
And it's all falling into place. It's as if Infogrames and the Wachowski Brothers have foreseen the future, a prophesy that reads: Enter The Matrix will conquer all.
Or will it? Because of the other hand, for a guy like me, a guy who helps to produce hype on games he actually likes, Enter the Matrix is a troubling game. At the game's debut in Hollywood this winter, the unveiling was a pure piece of Hollywood production, glitter and hype. While I was wowed by the Animatrix trailer, I was un-moved by the early preview build. Usually, a game is either fun or not, and it's those games that find themselves in the middle that make it strangely interesting to cover. Enter The Matrix. Do I like it? I hate the feeling that I should like it -- that I'm supposed to like it -- and I despise the notion that it will sell because of the power of the movie. I hope that the game turns out well, and that it sells on the strength of its gameplay, and only its gameplay. So, what should I do? Does the game suck or rock? What does a preview of this monstrous game really mean at this point in time?
Having been given a preview of Infogrames/Atari's game (we played the PS2 version), we have spent a good deal of the afternoon playing it. Developed by Shiny Entertainment, creators of games such as Messiah, Wild 9s and the Earthworm Jim series, Enter The Matrix takes a straight action-adventure route, replete with lots of dramatic, in-game cutscenes. The game is a sort of in-between, read-between-the-lines-of-the-movie title that takes two new characters Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Ghost (Anthony Wong) and puts you into their stiff leather boots. Yet it doesn't tell the movie's story at all, which is why you'll have to see the movie, play the game, and watch the Animatrix trailers to get the whole picture.
We are sorry in advance that we cannot reveal much about the story, but to be honest, we essentially have been forced to sign the most monstrous NDA (non-disclosure agreement) we have ever signed, thus preventing us from revealing the story's twists and turns. To be fair, any mention of the story would, or at least, might reveal plot elements. So, you'll just have to wait.
Shown from a stiff, panhandle-like third-person perspective, players can select either character from the beginning and start playing through a series of action sequences in large, empty builds. Shiny used motion-capture to re-create the likeness of the movie characters. The result, at least in this preview and surely in the final version, is a mixed bag. The models do indeed look realistic and so they present players with the feeling that they are being put into the role of the movie characters. That's a start. Having said that, the characters move in peculiar if not entirely awkward ways. They move with a robotic motion -- in stiff, unrealistic mechanical movements. Heck, they run like a downgraded T2 from Terminator 2.
The characters fight with the same kind of motion. Only in the fights, the martial arts moves look slightly smoother and a little more fluid. (Because of fast action combat, it's also harder to distinguish the awkwardness, even if it is there.) The fighting is very…average. It's designed to be super easy, and it succeeds in being ridiculously so. One button is for attacks, another for kicks; one is for jumping, and another for action (like pressing a switch and opening doors). Pushing two buttons simultaneously enables players to grapple and throw. It's quite satisfying the first time you use Bullet Time to break someone's neck. Using the digital pad, players can switch weapons and by pressing action again, they can sheath them. Players can easily kick a group of enemy booty by simply smashing the same buttons over and over again. It's no-brain combat, designed primarily to look cool.
Honestly, the combat system's simplicity seems outright stupid at first, but as the levels progress and the enemies increase in numbers and strength -- and as you start fighting agents -- the simplicity of the combat actually makes sense. You want to kick as fast and pull off Bullet Time moves quickly and then get going. So there is no fuss about it. Visually speaking, the combat grows far more interesting when one learns to "Focus," or using a term gamers are more familiar with, when they enter "Bullet Time."
The best thing about the preview build we played is Bullet Time. With two simple meters on screen (health, focus), players build up both as they play. So, you might lose Health and Focus, but by simply staying out of harm's way, both meters slowly return to 100%. (This sounds like it would make the game very easy to play, but given the amount of armed enemies one faces simultaneously, it makes sense.) By pressing a button (on the PS2 it's L1), Bullet Time slows time, your enemies' bullets, and your movement -- but not your bullets. Also, it enables you to avoid enemy bullets because you can actually see them flying through the air. In the PS2 version of Max Payne, one could not genuinely see the bullets well enough to catch that sweet effect. Here, the effect of bullets flying through air, pummeling enemies and whatnot looks very good and clear. Strange things do happen in Bullet Time, though, like being able to turn in midair around a corner. I guess "there is no spoon," right? Thus, anything is possible. Which makes me wonder when I can fly like Superman (HEY! If Keanu Reeves can do it, why can't I?)
Still, Bullet Time is the best part of the game. Remember how you could run up walls in Devil May Cry 2, yet there was no gameplay to back the effect? Here the effect is the point, and it actually enhances gameplay. Run toward a wall in Bullet Time and dodge your enemies' attacks and their bullets, land behind them, and Kung Fu their asses from behind (hey perverts, it's an action game, so quit it already). Or run at a slant toward a wall and use it to jump through the air in an impressive acrobatic move. Or simply hit Bullet Time and dive head first toward an enemy in a twirling corkscrew move with guns a' blazing, killing off your enemies in seconds. Playing around with this effect, in all its iterations, creates a deeper (not terribly deep, but moderately deep) kind of combat. What's more, it implants the feeling that you're "playing" the movie. Thus, to a certain extent, this aspect of the "movie-game synchronicity" works.
As far as level design goes, these stages are all large, mostly non-interactive, and empty. Whether you're driving or shooting, the levels we played are plain and simple, massive in size, but void of things to do. Most knobs, switches, computers, and doors render nothing. There are tons of empty rooms with nothing in them. For their size and structure, one would think there would be more interactivity, but apart from being able to knock books off shelves, there isn't really anything to interact with. You essentially walk through levels, fight, and find more doors. Cutscenes provide more information and, always, the next item to retrieve or door to find. To be fair, you can break glass, climb metal fences, and climb on many objects. And to be honest in addition to my fairness, none of that is terribly revolutionary.
Another level we played puts you in a car, as Ghost or Niobi, while the other character is at the wheel. It's essentially a rail-based shooter. You lean out the window and blast oncoming police cars as the driver burns though the city streets driving like a complete maniac. At one point, the car lifts up on two wheels because it's going so fast and turning so hard. Another level features an Agent. You run across a series of rooftops and through broken down buildings as the digital bad guy runs you down. It's actually enjoyable to play. Using Bullet Time you jump from rooftop to rooftop (a la the first set of scenes from The Matrix with Trinity), fight police and escape the Agent. It's fun.
Visually, Enter The Matrix is good-looking in some ways, but in most ways it's merely average. As explained above, the character models are well done, and the facial geometry is excellent. The characters' eyes, mouths and cheekbones are well built and realistic. Niobi's hair, for instance, is damn cool looking. The bullets streaming from your guns in Bullet Time are tres sweet, with warbling air effects, smoke and "contrails" whizzing away. But the levels are all plainly textured, mostly empty, and colored with a dull set of colors (grays, ivy greens, browns and the like). The game is very dark. While the color scheme may be appropriate to duplicate the look of the scenes set in the Matrix in the movie, in general, Enter the Matrix doesn't in any way impress visually. It's not ugly by any means, nor is it gorgeous. It fits somewhere in the middle, neither startlingly impressive nor painful to the eye.