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The first thing I noticed was, of course, the "revolutionary" link to Hollywood. Upon booting up, I created a new game and was able to choose to play either Naiobi or Ghost - both characters from The Matrix. Although the movies focus around the actions of Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus, Enter the Matrix gives us a glimpse into the lives of the crew of the Logos (Naiobi, Ghost, and Sparks). Throughout the game, the player can see what the Logos has been doing to help the main characters of The Matrix out. There are little things in the movie that happen very unexpectedly, and in the game you can see why they happen. For example, in the movie, Naiobi appears out of nowhere to save Morpheus as he fights on a moving delivery truck. In the game, the player actually controls Naiobi and sees how it is that she happened to get there. This added a nice twist to the game in that we saw the other, less known half of the Matrix story.

That being said, I can hardly call this style revolutionary. It certainly is neat to see how things tie together, but the amount of detail we receive is minimal. In the perfect Hollywood-PC relationship, half of the story would be revealed in the movie and half in the game. In Enter the Matrix, the game is more of a cool add-on to the movie, and doesn't offer much additional content to the actual plot. In other words, playing Enter the Matrix won't give you the startling revelations about the movie that it claims will be around every corner.

Sometimes, these little sequences that tie in are shown as movie clips. Directed by the Wachowski brothers, the game offers about 10 small clips to advance the story, and features the original cast of The Matrix. This was a nice touch, but the scripting for the clips was not very good, and the clips seemed badly timed and out of place. They had a thrown-together feel that made me think the writers didn't spend much time on them.

The actual game play was both great and horrible at the same time. I digress: First of all, I'm going to admit something. I'm a sucker for slow motion. You could throw me off of a 100-story building in slow motion and I'd think it was awesome. You could wave at me in slow motion and it would throw me into fits of excitement. When the characters of Enter the Matrix started diving around in slow motion, doing cartwheels and shooting unsuspecting guards, I was ecstatic. Pretty awesome stuff. While in Focus mode (the slow-motion mode), the character can cartwheel, dive, flip, wall run, and shoot, causing some amazing combos and awesome animation sequences. I think buying the game for the price it has today is worth it just to shoot things in slow motion.

When out of Focus mode, however, the game becomes much worse. The designers obviously put a lot of thought into the slow motion sequences and little into the combat and physics system. Environmental interaction is minimal (maybe you can shatter a window or break some glass once in a while). The physics need a lot of work, and units travel unrealistic distances when punched or kicked. There is no feel of realism, as if the character has no weight. There's no indication as to whether this is due to being in the Matrix and having this "power" or if it's just a design flaw.

Weapons are not very diverse - although there are may be 15 different types - they are all pistols, machine guns, or shotguns. That's it. They are pretty fun to use, but more diversity in the arsenal (rocket launchers, anyone?) would have added a lot to the game.

Actual physical combat is less than desirable. You click to punch and right click to kick. Pressing certain buttons on the keyboard while punching and kicking produces different moves, and you can also block and throw the enemy. I'd say the system is adequate, but it doesn't allow for a good variety of techniques or chains, and the combat goes too fast to actually see what you are doing - it turns into a click fest. Not that I dislike a good click fest, but I'd like a little more combo support or strategy while fighting.

When not fighting hand-to-hand, the character is often flipping around in slow motion shooting at enemies. This is where the game's major downfall comes in. There is an odd bug in which the crosshairs disappear. In third person mode, it is very hard to shoot people when you can't see where you are shooting. The crosshairs only reappeared after several levels, so I ended up spending about half the game without crosshairs. This made it very unenjoyable. When I tried the latest patch, the game wouldn't even boot. Go figure. The rest is either OK or excellent, but you would think that the designers would have made sure to include crosshairs in their game.

The last thing I'd like to note is the Hacking mini-game. A player can go into hacking mode on their save file, and play a short mini-game in which they "Hack" the system. This kept me occupied for about 15 minutes, but was interesting to do. By solving small puzzles and figuring out passwords, it gives the player access to a few extras on the game, including secret weapons, a secret training area, and various cheats. It's small, but a neat addition.

Overall, I liked it a lot. Being of the "love-to-watch-stuff-go-boom-in-slow-motion" mindset, Enter the Matrix gave me a great opportunity to satisfy my desires. The rest of the game, however, was not very well done for a Third Person Shooter - if Enter the Matrix didn't have slow motion I would consider if one of the worse games I've played. The addition of Focus, however, and the nice slow-motion combos and techniques make Enter the Matrix a good buy, especially considering how little it costs.