This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content. It was written by Matthew Call.

The Matrix has been hailed as the Star Wars of the current generation, and just like Star Wars it has begun to spin-off videogames. Enter the Matrix was released on the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube when Matrix Reloaded hit theaters and received mixed reviews. The Matrix Online was viewed as Warner Brother’s second chance to create a good Matrix game. Unfortunately, as you will see in this review, they did not entirely succeed.

You may be thinking to yourself, “Wasn’t this game released in March? Why review it now?” Yes, you’re right about it being released a few months ago, but a review now is especially valid when considered in the context of the game’s recent history. A brief summation: the game was released by Sega and Warner Bros. in March. The game received lackluster reviews, didn’t sell very well, and was then sold to Sony Online Entertainment in June. Sony announced less than two weeks ago that it was downsizing the number of servers in the game from nine to three in order to make it easier for players to find each other and, undoubtedly, to cut costs, so The Matrix Online is in a very different position now than it was in March with a new owner and fewer servers.

Ok, with that out of the way, let me give you a rundown of the game. The Matrix Online is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, the same type of game as EverQuest or World of Warcraft. In The Matrix Online you are able to create a character and then play as that character in an online virtual world surrounded by thousands of other players all playing the same game and accomplishing the same tasks as you. The Matrix franchise would seem to be the perfect setting for an MMORPG as the premise of the Matrix movies is a virtual reality world that people jack into and interact in. Thus the player can pretend to be living in Zion or Alabama, whatever floats your boat, and then jack into the Mega City of the Matrix movies.

To top it off, The Matrix Online continues the storyline of the Matrix movies. If you wanted to know what happened after Neo beat Agent Smith and the truce was declared between the humans and the machines then you can play the game and watch as the story unfolds. Here’s a brief recap of what’s happened since March: the Matrix is in turmoil. The Exiles, led by the Merovingian, are causing havoc while the humans from Zion are going around trying to “awaken” as many people as possible inside the Matrix. The machines are worried about what will happen if too many humans are freed from the Matrix and are starting to cause problems for Zion. There are rumors that Neo might not be entirely dead. Morpheus was trying to retrieve the remains of Neo from the machines, who seemed strangely hesitant to give them up. However, Morpheus was killed by an Exile, who was disguised as a masked man, but is in reality about a million flies in a trench coat. The ongoing content is one of the game’s strong selling points since the world feels a little less static than most MMORPGs.



Now onto the meat of the review. The Matrix Online gets a lot of things right. For starters the graphics are fairly well detailed and do a great job of capturing the feel of the movies. The Mega City looks like the city seen in the Matrix movies and is full of little details such as trash in the streets, cars driving by, newspapers fluttering around and pigeons milling about. There are even pedestrians walking around as well as the typical myriad of enemies. The city feels gritty, the buildings are a little dirty, and there is also a slight haze and greenish tint in the air which makes the game feel similar to the movies.

The costumes are also extremely well done. The Matrix movies were drenched in Gucci meets Goth outfits and the game excels at allowing the player to pick a killer wardrobe. Although the selection isn’t very large in the character creation area, the player soon finds more clothing than he could possibly ever need in the Mega City. There is a surprising amount of variety from the trench coats and spandex of Neo and Trinity, to the suits of the Merovingian, and everything in between. There are even vintage 1920’s outfits if the player wants to go for an Al Capone look.

The audio in the game is also very well done. The weapons actually have some bass to them, the cool kung fu sounds of the movies transfer over well to the game, and there is some dialogue that is voiced by actors from the movie. The electronic squelch of the Matrix and ringing of telephones also adds to the Matrix feel. The music is similar to the music of the Matrix movies, although it does feel repetitive.

Combat is by far the best part of the game. The combat system uses a unique “interlock” mode to meld two combatants together once the fighting starts. Typically fights begin with guns and ranged attacks and then move into hand-to-hand fistfights. The fistfights are what make the game shine. Unlike most MMORPGs, where one player swings a sword in more or less the general direction of the character he is fighting, in The Matrix Online the combatants actually physically touch each other. In the middle of a fight the player will easily see someone get kneed in the groin, head-butted or generally slapped silly. Combine a knee to the groin with bullet time and the player will watch as time slows down and his opponent crumples to the ground, writhing in slow motion agony. The effect is quite satisfying and is used frequently enough to make the player feel good about his martial arts abilities, but not so frequently that the player gets tired of it.

Perhaps the most innovative of the game’s features is the mission system. Unlike other MMORPG’s where the player typically has to track down someone in order to get a mission from them, walk 5,000 miles to complete the mission and then walk all the way back to the person who gave them the mission, The Matrix Online uses a cell phone. The player simply calls someone on his contact list, gets a mission over the phone and calls that person back to complete the mission and obtain another mission if he so desires. The missions are always inside buildings and are randomly created, so no matter what part of town the player is in, he is always able to get a mission within about 500 meters of his current location. The missions are also fairly short so a player can easily do at least three or four in an hour.

Where do I begin? Ah yes, the learning curve. I’ve played several MMORPGs including World of Warcraft, EverQuest 2 and City of Heroes and one thing they all have in common is that they are fairly simple to get the hang of. After playing for a few hours the player feels fairly confident they know how the game works and how to upgrade and develop their character. Unfortunately, this is not the case with the Matrix Online. After playing for several hours I wasn’t entirely sure how to upgrade my character properly, although I did eventually figure out that many upgrades need to be bought from vendors inside the game. After pouring about 15 hours into the game I feel fairly confident I know what is going on, although I would say I felt the same way only five or six hours into World of Warcraft.

Next up is the population problem. The Matrix Online should be called an NSMMORPG, or a Not So Massively Online Multiplayer Role-Playing Game. From my perusing of the Internet is seems The Matrix Online has sold fewer than 100,000 copies which is ridiculously few for a mainstream MMORPG. World of Warcraft has sold 3.5 million copies, for example. Logging into the game the low population is appallingly obvious as even in the most crowded of areas on the busiest server there are only a handful of other players. Looking at who is playing also tells you a lot about the game. Most players are at the level 50 limit, and those who are less than level 50 tend to be level 25 or higher. That tells me that no one new is playing the game and the majority of those who are playing now have probably been playing since the game launched. Lack of new blood will kill an MMORPG and also makes it tougher for new people to get into the game.

There are, of course, other issues. While the Mega City feels very much like the city of the Matrix movies, it quickly becomes repetitive. The player can get lost easily since all the buildings seem to look more or less the same and there is no north or south arrow on the map. While the game’s mission system has the player constantly entering different buildings the player can’t help but feel as if he’s entering the same building he entered on the last mission. To top it off, the building’s interiors seem to cycle between about five iterations. I played one mission where I entered a building and went to a floor with two doors to find my target, then on my next mission went to an entirely different building where I went to a floor with the same two doors and found my target in the same spot! Having missions in random buildings is good, but why not randomly generate the building’s interiors as well?

While the environments feel repetitive, the missions themselves feel even more so. All the missions seem to fit a kill, steal, and deliver cookie cutout. Most missions have you enter a building, kill all occupants, take something, then go to another building and deliver the item to someone else. Kill three exiles, steal this data stick, deliver this data packet to so and so, rinse, wash, repeat. These missions are mildly entertaining at first but quickly feel like the developers were too busy working on other areas of the game to incorporate much diversity into the missions. For starters, why not have missions in warehouses, sewers or parks? Why not have hostage rescue, negotiation, or defuse the bomb missions? Anything that added a little variety to the game would have been nice.

There are also several bugs still evident in the game. At times doors won’t open when the player clicks on them and then the player is able to run through the closed doors. Also, the player automatically jumps over cars in the street but sometimes this occurs after the car has passed through the player! Also on the tutorial I got a little ahead of myself and completed an objective before the game gave it to me and was stuck in tutorial limbo because I couldn’t complete an objective that was already complete. I had to kill the game, wait a few minutes and log back in to escape the tutorial.



The Matrix Online isn’t necessarily a bad game – it just could have been so much better. A little more variety, fewer bugs and a shorter learning curve would have made this not only a good game, but a great game. I like to think of it in terms of going out to eat. A hamburger isn’t bad, in fact there’s a great hamburger joint down the street that I love, but if I could have filet mignon for the same price I’m going to go for the filet mignon. The Matrix Online is that hamburger; it gets the job done but when there are games like EverQuest and World of Warcraft that do it a lot better for the same price, I’d rather go with one of them. Overall, I’d say The Matrix Online is only a must buy if you’re tired of other MMORPGs or if you’re a diehard Matrix fan who is willing to overlook a mediocre game in order to find out what happens next in the Matrix saga.

Steep learning curve and too repetitive to be enjoyable, but the combat looks really good.

With all the bells and whistles turned on the game really captures the feel of the movies.

Sound has lots of bass, and many effects are taken straight from the movies and utilized well.

Not enough people to play with and the repetitive nature of the game drove me up the wall.

An MMORPG experience is a little different every time. The ongoing content is nice.