Nut Load. Mini reviews of games old and new. No fuss. No spoilers. Occasional shock face.

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Enter the Matrix (2003)


Genre: Action | Players: 1 | Developer: Shiny Entertainment

This is a much maligned game, and in terms of gameplay, I 100% agree. The movement is animated poorly, the environments are shoddily rendered, and frankly there are some glitches afoot that can prevent forward progress altogether. I played this when I returned to gaming around 2005 and even then I knew deep down that it was a fairly miserable interactive endeavor. I never would have expected the Constantine game to be the eternal champion of those initial purchases. You CAN mess around with what I will retroactively call a hacking app and make your controller vibrate on command, if that does anything for you. It shouldn't.

When it comes to the story, however, this a case of a diamond being completely enmeshed in an elephant turd. The cutscenes are MAGNIFICENT, flat out. They are hyper canonical, in my book. Not only are we treated to more footage of Mary Alice as the Oracle (who I prefer in the role) but we're also given a more balanced glimpse of Lock, a wonderful and funny fight scene for Ballard (Roy Jones Jr.), our third hilarious Operator/Everyman (Sparks), and everything I need to justify Ghost being one of my most cherished characters in the entire saga.

The Wachowskis must be commended for realizing their value compared to the mountain of trash they were buried in, and consequently liberating them. They can now be found in the Reloaded Revisited materials on the Ultimate Matrix Collection. What took place in the game between them can easily be inferred even if you haven't touched this, which, you shouldn't. The only (non-)issue is that the scenes have an air of taking place during Reloaded AND Revolutions because of Mary Alice's presence. I tend to watch them in between the first movie and Reloaded but watching them in between either is the best you're going to do outside of splicing them into Reloaded yourself. That is, of course, if you've seen the trilogy before. If you want to watch them on your first run of the films.....don't. There's no super clean way to do it as a virgin to the property.

I haven't much spoke to this as a game, because to me it really isn't one. It was a miserable little cage that no longer need exist in my world or on my shelf.

Buyer's Guide: Don't you dare. PS2, Xbox, GameCube, PC. Blu-Ray, DVD

1 Purpose Properly Reinstated out of 5

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