Never mind the Sturm and Drang surrounding the license behind this game. Never mind the money spent, the bragging in regards to the fancy motion capture, the extra footage filmed especially for the game. Forget all of that. There is only one thing that matters in regards to Atari's Enter The Matrix: how is it as a game?

Enter The Matrix allows you to fill in the blanks of the Matrix storyline by utilizing two characters seen in the recently released Matrix Reloaded, Niobe and Ghost. Depending upon which character you choose, the point of view revealed changes. Now, Enter The Matrix certainly looks the part, especially in the fighting/on-foot exploration portions of the game. Everything has that certain greenish tinge to it, and the graphics during gunfights are nice. The environments themselves, however, have a sterile, samey look to them, unlike those in the movie, or even other games like GTA, which feel much more alive. Here, you're facing the same batch of cops, security guards, thugs and SWAT members over and over, occasionally broken up with an appearance by an Agent or two, as well as a few other characters. Where are the many different NPCs that should be in a game like this? The addition of a couple of janitors certainly doesn't qualify as a living, breathing world. Destructible elements such as windows aside, the environments don't feel as alive as they should...and don't get me started on the horrible driving and flying portions of the game. Dark, drab, sterile backdrops - simply awful.

Control varies from middling to infuriating. The fighting portion of the game employs Focus (also known as Bullet Time, Slow-Down, etc) to recreate the cool time-slowing effects of the original movie. With Focus employed, you can pull off extraordinary moves such as running on walls, complicated throws, punch and kick combinations, increased accuracy when shooting, and the like. As it stands, however, pulling off these moves are more of a crap shoot - what you get isn't always what you originally envisioned when tapping on the analog stick and buttons. Shiny has seen fit to include a list of tips that's easily accessible by Pausing the game, but it's strange that a title such as Enter The Matrix, with everything the license and development entails, has far more control issues than the free PC Kung-Fu mod for Max Payne, a title that's a couple of years old now. The fighting controls need some SERIOUS tweaking. It's not like you have to worry much about the difficulty - just like in The Getaway, finding a place to hide will allow you to recover lost health.

Animation is a mixed bag. The throws and fighting animations look great - straight out of the movies. The climbing and running animations are extremely stiff, and the running in particular can cause problems in later levels where watching your step is paramount.

The footage that opens up the story is, quite frankly, the only real reason I slogged through this title - it's quite revealing and fills in some of the holes left by the Matrix movies and Animatrix DVD. It's nice to see the universe extended to encompass characters which don't play as large a part in the movie like the principal Neo, Morpheus and Trinity characters. If this footage was available by itself, there would be no reason to subject yourself to the game. Hacking portions are where I found the most enjoyment. Messing about reminded me of the days where I'd be trying to free up memory in DOS in order to play Strike Commander on my old 486...but I digress. You can open up secrets, cheats and other cool stuff through hacking, and was a lot more fun than running around shooting stuff.

Straight up? Enter The Matrix isn't the worst movie licensed game ever made - E.T. on the Atari 2600 has that award sewn up - but the implementation here is nearly a complete waste, considering the richness of the universe involved. Lousy controls, sterile and anemic environments, and weaksauce driving environments all pull down the good work done in the sound, character graphics and new footage departments. Is it worth a rental? Just to watch the new footage. If you want good gameplay, go buy Max Payne. It outdoes Matrix at its own game and can be found a lot cheaper to boot. Avoid at all costs, unless you absolutely have to see all footage involved with the Matrix. Life's too short to waste with crap games.