The Matrix Path of Neo Review (PS2) By KAL-EL

9 / 10
22 Jun 2006 at 15:08

Review by: KAL-EL

The Matrix: Path Of Neo is the game matrix fans have waited for. In the Path of Neo the player takes control of Neo and relives events from the movies, such as the lobby scene in the first film, the fight against an infinite number of agent smiths, as well as extra events which give a little more help understanding the story. The Path of Neo is a whole lot better than 2003’s Enter the Matrix, it looks better, plays better and playing as neo is a lot more satisfying than running around as Ghost or Niobe any day of the week.

The whole game is from Neo’s perspective so players can’t relive the highway chase from The Matrix Reloaded or the massive real world battle between Zion and the machines in Revolutions but this is compensated for by allowing players to play even better events. Everything about Path of Neo screams "the one" at nearly every chance. Whether it's the awsome code vision you unlock during the second movie part of the game or the stunning recreation of the trilogy's most famous environments, everything you'd expect to be here is here, or at least, everything you'd expect from a game about Neo. But one of the things that make Path of Neo stand out is that there's still a lot to do despite its narrow character focus.

When Neo is trying to flee from agents at the start of the first movie, for instance, players don't just have to run from cubicle to cubicle before making it to an outside window, Neo's escape is a lot more intense. He'll have to shimmy across ledges, avoid agents and cops next to construction zones, and sprint down several flights of stairs evading capture from agents and police officers, if you make it through this level with out being captured, Neo will zoom off with Trinity on a motorcycle.

This game is full of story altering choices and decisions, but all keep Neo heading to the climactic final battle between him and smith in revolutions. At the front of Path of Neo's more notable features is the depth of its combat system. Borrowing elements from the previous Matrix title, Sony's God of War, and a pile of other context-sensitive action games, there's an uncountable ammount of moves that players can learn to pull-off before they're finished.

At first the game seems a little clunky and too overwhelmed by animations to be effective (this isn't helped by the default controller setting, which makes doing moves fast and comfortably a problem. Take my advice and change it to the "Gamma" configuration in the options menu), but once you've gotten a grasp of the controls the game becomes an intense matrix experience filled with agents, NPC's in need of help and a dangerous ammout of butt kicking moves and weapons.

Once it does, The Matrix is good fun. When you're face-to-face with six or seven agents and a couple of SWAT team members, it's pretty thrilling to bust out a sweet combination of feet, fists, and samurai swords. The range of manoeuvres you can pull of are really quite spectacular, actually, especially when you consider that you only have fire, strike, special attack, and jump buttons to perform a couple of hundred moves with.

If performing that many attacks sounds impossible given the controller configuration, then, please, allow me to enlighten you: your equipped weapons and character position in relation to your opponent are all crucial elements, meaning that while your basic actions may be set to a few dozen combinations, their effect on your enemies will differ based on what you use and where, but all of Neo's attacks are satsactory.

The use of “focus” in this game is perfect, using it Neo’s shots become more accurate, his hand to hand combat attacks become more powerful and he can, jump higher, further, run faster, run up and across walls, dodge bullets or stop them in midair, and more. You can target multiple enemies at once, and using new ways to chain your attacks so that you can take out as many people as possible in a single combo is only a small portion of Neo's asskickery.

A great feature in The Matrix, is its steady climb in difficulty. Despite all of the ability that Neo aquires as the story unflods, the CPU stays with you every step of the way. So while you may gain the ability to dodge bullets or perform gravity defying jumps in one stage, the next level will compensate with more enemies wielding pistols, smarter agents, or larger stopgaps for you to overcome.

I can say in all honesty that there wasn't a single stage in the entire game that felt like it threw too much at me too soon, or made me feel that Neo's arsenal of weapons and hand to hand combat attacks were being wasted, the game manages to keep you on edge and feeling "wow, this is getting hard" until in a single combo, your standing in a circle of dead bodies. It's obvious that a lot of time was spent working out the little nuances challenge progression.

Unfortunatley, this difficulty balance doesn't change the fact that Path of Neo does run into some repetition problems and some weird pacing shifts. To be more specific, there's a good portion of puzzles and alternate stages between the action. One area will charge you with figuring out how to use a crane to crush an irratating rocket launcher wielding swat officer, for instance, while another puts you on top of slim wooden poles that force you to balance and battle in the middle of a fire pit. There's even a fun little helicopter "on-rails" shooting mini-game to take part in, and a stealthy escape mission.

As you could imagine, some of these flaws are forgivable and some aren't, but one of them (an irratating netherworld with floating doors, steps leading to nowhere, upside down rooms, an S&M bondage chick and kung-fu ants) is particularly annoying. The whole idea is to navigate through a series of strange "find the right portal" puzzles that can take a really long time to complete and it brings no value to the storyline whatsoever.

While on the subject of storylines, I can't forget to mention that the Wachowski brothers have given The Matrix: Path of Neo an all-new ending to compliment its videogame approach. The pair did write and direct the events of the game just as they did the movies, so they were bound to add a finish that was more befitting of the interactive experience.

In fact, the moment that the Wachowskis come onscreen to introduce the final stage (and subsequent ending) is easily the most bizarre moment of the game and, in a way, pin points one of The Matrix's biggest flaws in that it doesn't tell its story very well.

To be honest, the way that the cut scenes from the three films (and the Animatrix) are cut together between levels just doesn't make any sense. I've seen all of the films multiple times each and it was tricky hard for me to follow what was going on. If you've never seen any of the films, then just forget about it, you better off skipping the cut scenes as the actual game events explain more.
Final verdict

Fans of The Matrix will probably swarm shops to get their hands on the Path of Neo and it's easy to see why. It does feature a fun and flexible combat system, a long 12-15 hour adventure(on easy or normal modes, depending on the players gaming ability), and the most memorable scenes from the motion picture trilogy. Some of the moves you can perform are just plain cool too (object levitation and code vision spring to mind), while the final boss battle is definitely worth experiencing. This is a great game and can be enjoyed by matrix fans and non fans alike. But I can't help but feel like the production team tried to hard by trying to fill the game with as many gameplay types, graphical effects, and scenes from the movies as possible as opposed to refining and focusing on the things the really worked: Namely kicking smiths butt, focus manoeuvres/extended focus meter

By James Maddocks

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