The Matrix Online Review

Gameplay: 7
At first experience, you DO feel as if you are in the Matrix. Sights, sounds, colors, and tasks all contribute to a decent parallel with the green-code world. The game begins to break down conceptually before you even begin to play, however. Typos, repeated text, and 1-to-1 character class comparisons to standard fantasy RPG roles are found right in the manual. An Operative class is more of a “warrior”, whereas a Hacker is a “mage.” To compare these classes hollows out the value and originality that the Matrix movies are known for. There is a lot of material for game developers to work with, and to strive to fit an MMO formula really damages the credibility of the game before it is even installed. What's more, the writing in the manual, in the subscriber emails, and in the game is often poor and not up to the standard set by the brothers who so carefully crafted the films this game is based on.

The tutorial was the most innovative part of MxO, including videos of both combat modes and toolbars. It allows you to get into the game and figure out how to move around fairly quickly. Even with the tutorial, though, the toolbar is a source of frustration. The interface has many locations you must understand in order to interact with key areas of the game, and many are too small to quickly utilize in combat situations. Some areas of the interface repeat character details, making it difficult to remember initially where to level or edit your character. MxO is another example of a disparate-feeling UI in a game demanding cohesive control. Note to MMO-makers: Get all your UI programmers in the same room and on the same page when crafting the interface. The chat area lacks full customization, and is not intuitive. There is an in-game connection to AOL instant messenger, the only redeeming quality of the inept chat interface. The W brothers painstakingly designed comic book frames in order to catch the ideal movie shots for the Matrix films; MxO would have done well to learn from this practice in designing the interface to match the environment.

One thing is certain about MxO: combat is fun. I personally enjoy watching slow motion headbutts and hand-stand bullet-strafes over and over. As much fun as the combat moves are, however, the interface again frustrates. There are a myriad of small pauses, camera jolts, mode changes, and annoyances that often turn fun combat into irritation. Try looting your kill right after combat. *Jerk* *Hitch* Okay, now you can loot the corpse. Little quirks add up to a high amount of frustration in an area of the game that must be solid. Martial arts are a core component of the Matrix world, and MxO manages to confuse and restrain what should be intuitive and free. There are many bits of code you can learn (“I know Kung-Fu”) that are a ton of fun to pull on opponents, yet many of them are staples used over and over. There is not enough benefit to some moves, and some moves may require special conditions to execute, making a select few others commonplace. Matrix films are known for excellent combat, and MxO does not live up to the quality fans expect. To add insult to injury, there are many other games that perform bullet time better than MxO.

There are severe unaddressed imbalances in MxO. Many of the problems are related to the missions structure. Players are able to choose multiple levels of mission diffculty and distance to travel, but why would anyone choose anything but tough missions? If you are going to grind xp (experience points), and you will, the only method worth your time is to go tough. The sad reason why: most of the missions you are assigned are not that hard. When you start adding crews to missions, you’ll be pulling down insane amounts of experience and money (cornily stretched to be named “information”). On top of this leveling fest, a low level character can join a high-level crew and effectively jump levels without a noticeable penalty. Many players have already reached the level 50 cap in the short time the game has been out of beta. To MxO's credit, leveling is not the focus of the game; storylines and events are the crux. Unfortunately, the storylines fail to pull players in, and you end up seeing crews standing next to hardlines dueling or talking about other MMOs while the scripted events pass by.

MxO does have some innovation. The character skill tree design is superb. Each subscriber is allowed one character per server. This is acceptable, as your one character can become anything in the game at any time, provided you have learned the proper skills. Three primary skill trees branch out into even more specific professions, allowing you to drill down into increasingly more potent abilities. As you level, those abilities you have learned can be increased in power. Each player gains memory space as they level, and this memory space holds the abilities you load at hardlines (phone booths scattered throughout the city) or in the loading area before you "jack in". The player chooses how deep to go into a skill tree, mixing and matching down the hierarchy to create the ideal combination. Combat abilities and professional skills are contained within this skill tree. Much of the fun of MxO is customizing your character and tricking out your skill tree to meet the needs of your style of play. For example, you may want to be able to heal yourself or party members, yet this will likely take away from your effectiveness at combat. If only the activities in the game lived up to the quality of the skill tree, MxO might give other MMOs a run for their monthly fees.

Graphics: 8
This game looks okay. There are much better MMO graphics on the market currently. The characters are obviously the focus of detail, and there are a lot of animations, emotes, and styles. The big problem is the dark and sparsely populated environment. The feel is more akin to running through a Shadowrun RPG than the Matrix. All the buildings are open for players to explore should they choose to, making for some multilevel situations, but there is little reason to make a trip there. Most trips to buildings will primarily be to fulfill mission requirements. It appears that all the bodies in the Matrix have chosen a side or a profession, and any other people vanished or are waiting to be awakened in a room somewhere. Almost the only place you will see an un-awakened citizen is on a mission in a building.

As far as performance is concerned, players will need a high end system to enjoy the game. For this review, MxO was run on an SLI box with dual nVidia 6600 GTs. It performed well initially, but experienced a noticeable performance hit fairly soon into a playing session. Anyone wishing to get into this virtual (virtual) world should make sure to use real RAM, and a lot of it. A system with 1.5 gigs would be the best bet if looking for a true minimum to avoid slowdown and poor framerates. The only other option would be turning down levels of textures to medium or lower, as well as eliminating shadows and the random knickknacks lying around. With SLI, the Matrix reached 1280x1024 with only a few hiccups met indoors. The long view distances of the outdoors environments often brought the framerate to noticeably low levels. On a lower end PC with extended play, it is safe to say higher settings will put the hurt on. Thankfully, options are provided to control shadows, textures, and doodad levels. Most players should be able to find a playable state if they meet the minimum requirements.

Sound: 7
The music from the movies is evident in the game, and helps the atmosphere greatly. Without it, a player would be frequently disjointed from the fact that he was in the Matrix. If there was an attempt to make the music dynamic, it was not noticed. 'Nuf said.

Multiplayer: 6
MxO provides both hostile and non-hostile environments, allowing for PvP combat. In this reviewer's opinion, PvP is the only way to truly come closer to getting your money's worth from the game. Unless you watch the schedule of events and tune in for the whole story, there is little else to do in the Matrix. Once you hit the level cap, your time is spent in duels or attempts to get uber loot by waiting 30 minutes for a boss to spawn. Players do form teams and crews (like crews of the hovercraft from the movies), effectively creating in-game factions that play into the storylines. Grouping is encouraged by the ability to level faster and get the best skills early on. For an MMO, there is not much multiplayer offering aside from cooperative missions and a weakly-portrayed storyline. There are many games without monthly fees that have much more satisfying multiplayer gameplay than MxO.

Replay Value: 4 

It is hard to imagine playing this game for an extended period of time without delving into the PvP aspect as the primary focus. This game is nearly all about grinding, no matter how much the plot is flaunted. The plot itself never grabs you and can be completely bypassed by the average gamer. Players may not even pick up on the fact that there is a storyline. MxO has such great potential for originality, but has fallen so short in so many areas. It even fails to fully emulate the movie from which it was taken (where, oh where are the swords?!?). The interesting ideas like the in-game character actors and live events are not new, and not enough to make the game worth coming back to. Charging $15 a month to play MxO is a farce, at best. Unless you are a die-hard Matrix fan bent on furthering the cause of the Matrix, you likely will get bored with MxO inside of the initial 30-day free period that comes with the game. Your money will be much better spent on a standalone RPG like Knights of the old Republic I and II or something with more dynamic content like the Neverwinter Nights Platinum package. MxO players: watch for a review on Guild Wars. There is no spoon here.

Pros:

-Dynamic abilility tree

-Kung Fu

Cons:

-Repetition, repetition, repetition

-Clunky, disparate interface.

-Weakly presented storyline and content.

-Imbalances.