The Matrix: Path Of Neo

The other reviewer dogged this game horribly.

I would be the first to admit that this game has many shortcomings, exspecially from a standard pc gamer point of view. The graphics are not Half-Life 2, thats for sure. One thing I noticed after i started playing though is that the game automaticlly set the graphics level to 2. You can check this in the options only before you start playing. I upped the setting to 10 and suddenly saw some nice shadow effects as well as specular maps. For those of you who don't know, specular maps make things look shiny. I recommend everyone adjust this setting before you start playing the game, unless you have a crappy system.

I have no problem with the pc controls. I can't imagine them being better with the current combat system.

The hand to hand combat in this game does seem simplified. There are button combos in this game to learn that will allow you to pull of some cool moves. I am becoming more intregued by the combat system as I play and learn how to pull of cool moves.

It is easy to tell that the guns in the game where not meant to be as flashy as the hand to hand combat. My major complaint with the guns is that while you have a good target reticule, you shoot from third person. This is ok but its not ok that when you shoot at eye level the Neo character model completely blocks your view of what is in front of you. So you wont know if you are hitting anything or not. You can always move to the side though.

You really have to spend more than 30 minutes with the game if you want more out of it. It is too bad that it didn't take advantage of all the pc has to offer, but at least we have a pc version.

Like the title says, this is infact the BEST Matrix game yet! While this holds little value to many, I'd like to elaberate on MY experience with the game, which seems to be a bit contrary to Mr Paul Arellano.

Graphics: Indeed Paul is right, the graphics do look a bit "ported." Meaning, majorly fuzzy, ESPECIALLY at a distance. Most certainly does this game fall way behind the likes of HF2, FEAR, Doom3 and so on, in the graphical department. Oddly enough, most faces look... Well, pretty realistic. Infact, if you look directly into Neo's eyes, but observe the background at the same time, he almost looks out of place. Very little detail exists in the world outside of Neo's face.

The first level: WARNING! IT SUCKS! :P I nearly had a heart attack doing the first level, the movement was choppy, the level was linear, and the excitement? None present. What was present was a feeling of ... loss... for my money that is. However, once the game recovers from this near-death-one-foot-in-the-grave-gameplay, it rocks!

Gameplay: This game is about as close to Neo as you can get. Enter the Matrix was a joke, however, this game (in my opinion) makes up for it. Most of the game involves you strategically taking on 4-8 NPCs at a time, and it's rather constant. That means heart pumping, button pushing, dry eyed ACTION! It is at this point, that the lack in graphics seem a distant memory, as upclose in combat, things are about as clear as they need to be to maintain a certain level of entertainment.

Martial Arts: Excellent! As you might expect from the Matrix, the moves are unbelievable! The time they shaved on the graphics obviously went into this department, as you are given a slew of arial, ground and focus attacks, custom to the amount of enemies you are taking on. One such move when queued with 3 enemies has you foot sweep 2, while they're in mid air you grab their feet and while swinging them in circular motion, pound the 3rd guy and finally slam the first two to the floor ontop of the 3rd!

Overall: It's undenyable that the game could be better, much like everything else. However, all in all, I'd say it's the Matrix game we've been waiting for. If you're an old Street Fighter fan, you will feel a definate resemblance while trying desperately to combine the right combo of moves to flatten your foes.

So the graphics are not great but, who said that is all in a game? I find this game pretty fun to play. Hand to hand combat is very fun as you can make many combo moves that looks just as cool as in the movies. Sound is good too. The reason this game takes so many space of hard drive must be because it has many edited cuts from the 3 movies of the matrix.

My only complain about this game are the controls, because the keyboard is needed to make many moves what is a little hard to manage.

I paid 20.00 for this game and i don't regret it. So, if you want to be the ONE, or at least feel like him, get this game.

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