At the time of writing this review I only saw The Matrix and The Animatrix, but not had the time to see The Matrix Reloaded yet, I thought I knew what I could expect from this title. But Did my expectations come through or where the disks more enjoyable as your average tea-table coaster?

The story of the game, as confirmed by other sources, runs syncronous with the movie Reloaded and is also directed by the Wachowski Brothers which should garantuee a game that fits in perfectly with the Matrix fenomenon.

Opening the package the first unhappy feeling arrises: 4 CD-roms. Why, oh why do developers still choose this medium while the DVD-romplayer in PC's is common? I am sure that when your computer is up to specs to play this game 90% of you have a DVD-romplayer.
During installation, which runs smoothly as most games, you get to see some art that wouldn't look half bad as a desktop wallpaper.

Starting a new game, you get to choose between two caracters: Niobe and Ghost, which both play their own game at points, and in the bits where both are involved you each have your specific task: Niobe controls the vehicle you're in, and Ghost handles the available weaponry. Most levels are the same though, exept for a few differences.
You are thrown in the Matrix immediately to pick up a package that holds vital information for the survival of Zion. While playing you get tips on moves and usage of weapons. The controls work well but I had problems using the combined actions of using focus, jump and shooting at the same time while using the standard control layout, but changing them around and practise helped. It would have been nice to have a training simulation, a bit like Neo and Morpheus did in the first movie.

Reasonably soon you notice that the shooting, kicking and punching becomes repetitive (only the skills of and the amount of opponents gets bigger) but sometimes you get those "wow, that I did not expect"-moments, but in a weird way: you are able to pull off a special move in focus (bullet-time like Max Payne someone?), for example a spiral dive and shooting. This gives a feeling of progress if the "tips" you get on new moves weren't sometimes late...

In between levels you get to see clips with the real actors of the movie in "high quality DiVX" and that's actually pretty cool... if they would keep the story fitting together. At a certain point in a sewer scene somebody sais Morpheus and friends were going to be late ("everything for an entrance") and a second later Morpheus is standing there. Probably they want the gamers to go and see Reloaded to get the full picture, but this does not help to keep the game understandable.

In the earlier stages of the game I really thought the sounds were the same all over, but when reaching key levels I must admid that the sound seriously adds to the tension, of course a good thing! The soundtrack fitts the game, but for most part is not my cup of tea (not enough guitars :) ). Graphically everythis was OK, even with the green filter over most of the game, what should add to the general Matrix feeling. I did notice mistakes here and there: some skins weren't completely right. But that could have been my mistake, I had to mess with my setting because the standard settings were a bit too dark in these bright and warm days.

The gameplay is pretty linear, the overhead arrow points you in the right direction most of the time, and even when you don't get any clues and directions from you Operator you still only get to open that one door to continue. A missed opportunity in my opinion...
Also they didn't include a multiplayer, although this game does have the potential to have it. Another opportunity missed, but maybe the levels present aren't big enough to have multiplayer games in...

What did take some time doing was the "hacking" part of the game. I've heard you can hack levels you can't get through, but I didn't try that. You can, after extensive trial and error, get to some goodies like movies, soundbites and some artwork. The interface looks DOS-like, no point 'n click stuff here: command prompt keyboard bashing as a true hacker! you can also use a simplified keyboard next to the prompt with your arrow and enter key, which can be handy for those who are used to AZERTY keyboards.

Conclusion:
I actually expected more of this game, allthough this game was hyped to bits, even in the regular press. Maybe, even though I enjoyed the game, I'm still missing something undefinable...