5/19/2003

There is no story for this game. The first few levels have a point, however after that you are not told why you are doing anything you are just told to do it. The cinematics are cool but explain nothing. Why were we blowing up a power plant, oh its a secret, well that's ok then. The ending of the game is absolutely pathetic. This game is just a trailer for the next matrix movies. I mean why was I suddenly fighting vampires that have to be killed with a steak, which happens automatically and you have no control over.
In fact my friend who bought the game at the same time, completely missed the end couple of levels and went straight to the ending, because he did not win a certain fight. He wouldn't even have known this had I not told him. A game which can allow this to happen is absolutely unforgivable.

Graphics look ok, but are inferior to max payne a game released 2 and a half years ago. And there are graphical glitches that mean that during the hovercraft mission your lasers disappear and so it becomes impossible to see what your doing. The fight camera is rubish and constantly doesn't show you that you are about to drop off the edge of a ledge or where the other enemies are in relation to you. The dodgegy camera angles also mean that more often than not you don't get to see the diarm move you have pulled off because its off screen.

The music in the game is ok when it works, it randomly disappears leading to no sound through cut scenes using the game engine. However most of these don't explain anything anyway. The advanced sound options don't actually work at all even though I have a Audigy the recommended card for the game.

There is no choice about who you aim at the auto aim does that and there is no way to turn it off. The auto aim also misses more often than not meaning that you constantly waste ammo trying to hit one guy. At the other end of the scale is the sniper rifle which is about as accurate and presice as putting a banana skin down and waiting for them to step on it, (which is not very accurate). Don't even try to shoot them in the head as that would take hours of patience with the mouse and constant use of strafing. You may line up the perfect shot only to find out that when you take it you have just shot that deadly piece of wood two foot in front of you. In fact all of the shooting in first person, including the driving suffers from the inability of being able to aim the gun properly.
Then we come to the AI of the game enemy AI is not the best, but it's not particually bad either. However the driving AI when you are the gunner is absolutely rubish it drives into everything even when there is an obviously clear route past. This leads to comic Austin Powers stuck between two pillars moments. However these quickly lose their comic appeal when they occur every two minutes and go on for a further ten, before you can start moving again.
The fighting itself is ok and looks really good, however it quickly becomes repetitive as the thousands of moves people have talked about quickly become either a punch or kick combo, throw or disarm.
The ability to focus is good however you are then limited by the fighting or trying to use the most infuriating auto aim system ever.
Overall the game appears incomplete, at one point you go through a save point and then youare in the large balcony area shown in the traialers, you think wow, until the door in front opens and you go through and the game asks you if you want to save again. This gives a total of 5 seconds between the saves, leading me to believe that there was supposed to be another level here. Overall this game seems to be suffering from the case that it was rushed out to coinside with the release of the film. This game had such potential, what a waste.