Price: £39.99 Players: 1 Widescreen: No 60Hz: No Ok, so I'm not a particular fan of the Matrix films, but I can still review a game objectively... when there's a decent game to review. This is a new game to run alongside the film of Matrix Reloaded. The first film was a bit of fun at times, but once you got past the flashy visuals, there was little else to hold your attention. Seeing how the second one has been explained, I shall not be rushing to see it, but there's always a chance a game can be different and set itself as enjoyable entertainment. Yes, there's always a chance... but it's a chance not always taken. I'm sure there's a plot in here somewhere as you take on the roles of either Ghost or Niobe from the sequel, but the game pigeonholes itself into fight scenes, car chases, piloting the Logos - the fastest hovercraft in the Zion fleet and encountering the Oracle to ask for help how to save mankind.

Let's start with the good things about Enter the Matrix - it's going to sell by the shedload whatever anyone says of it, but it doesn't deserve to. It sold a million copies within the first week but, because of the amount of money ploughed into it, they'll need to sell four million to break even. Now on to what's wrong with it. First up, it's buggy. I killed a guard in the opening level and he stayed hovering in mid-air and this was nothing to do with 'bullet time' as I replayed the level and he just lay dead on the ground like he was meant to. As for that special effect which came to the fore in the original movie, Max Payne managed to pull this off much more effectively. There's a very average game engine here with moderate graphics, but ones that are poorly executed and nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever. The camera angle can be incredibly poor when fighting close to a wall or crate as you or the enemy can get blocked out of sight - and at any other time where you can't see ahead, the view switches to a fancy side-on appearance, stretching the graphics a bit to make it appear to fit in with the film. The camera also# changes angle randomly during a fight as well. Did anyone play-test this? In addition to this, we have appalling game physics, as you thump an enemy and the baddies fly across the room like a rag doll. Come on - put up some resistance!

On with the onslaught, and if you jump while running about, your character may as well be Lionel Blair the way he skips around. Kick someone along the ground and it must be a highly-polished floor surface as you can push them along as if it's a game of curling. The soundtrack in the background jitters from time to time as it plays, and the gameplay is all so linear, with one key annoyance that many games suffer - why bother having doors placed in walls if they're going to be locked? Enter the Matrix was the game with which Infogrames made the change to rebrand themselves as Atari, long since known as the Japanese gaming maestro and creators of my first console in the early 80s, the Atari VCS 2600. Hopefully they'll make amends by following up this tripe with a complete retrospective of that generation's games in one package. Please! If you still follow the adage that you have to find out what the matrix is for yourself, then rent it first. If you buy this dog of a game then you only have yourself to blame.

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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2003.