Path of Neo had amazing potential. And they shit on it. HARD.
Camera control is horrible. Slowdown - prolific. And the bad thing is that it's supposed to be intentional, as 'bullet time'. Only all it does is slow the game down and not allow you to attack. Mind you this is not counting when you actually USE the 'force' button to create bullet time. The game literally just slows down 'for effect' and it's REALLY annoying when you're in a crunch.
The point of the game is to go through the Matrix movies from Neo's point of view. Only they add in things that weren't in the Matrix. Some things are cool, like getting to the roof of the Metacortec building when Morpheus contacts you for the first time. You can actually try to make it (and eventually have to run down the stairs and get on Trinity's motorcycle). Stuff like that is neat, but other things are just annoying, like uring Neo's 'traning' with Tank (who is thankfully missing from the game) the training program 'corrupts', and you have to stay in there until they repair the program. Ugh. It's at this point that Tank decides you have to master the Katana - even though Neo never uses melee weapons other than a pole. Sounds like it would be cool - but once you pick up the Katana, the game decides it's time to 'decide when you can attack'. No slashing here and there - presumably an attempt to make the combat 'deep'. At random times Neo CANNOT and WILL NOT attack. He will sit there and take a beating. You can hit the attack button all you want. There's also a 'grab' button which works some of the time, but most of the time it acts like a 'shove' button. It breaks your opponent's defense and allows Neo to go in for a close up combo (which is just scripted - you don't actually control it).
The game has a dodge button that comes in handy about 2% of the time. The game prompts you when you can use the dodge button (cool idea - sort of like spider-sense) but you still get the shit kicked/slashed out of you WHILE YOU'RE DODGING THE ATTACK YOU WERE WARNED ABOUT.
Sometimes guys will 'dodoge' behind you when they are attacking - well, Neo must be a weakling because as soon as they move around him.. he gets dizzy. So then you have to use the dodge button. (see my above comments on the Dodge button for an explanation on this part)
You get stronger as you go through the game - gaining more awareness, more 'force' (bullet) time, and gaining more special moves that appear randomly in a fight.
One cool thing is that you can fight multiple opponents at a time - and as far as I got into the game (several levels) you can fight up to THREE at the same time!!!one!! Only while you're 'fighting' 3 people you are usually surrounded by 10 or more (seriously) and of the 3 people you are fighting at the same time - you can only ATTACK two of them. So while you're 'figthing' 2 of the 3 people allowed you are getting your ass beat by 9 or 10 other people - even though you're dodging. AWESOME design guys, simply awesome.
I don't believe the voice actors are actually Keanu, Lawrence and Carrie for the in-game cutscenes. During movie clips it obviously is. Its a lot like the Episode III game in that respect.
Hmm.. what else? Oh yeah - checkpoints. This game is of the 'checkpoints are for the birds - but sometimes we'll use them' philosophy. There is one level that isn't hard per se, but it's just long and annoying. If you get to the boss of this level and die - you start the ENTIRE LEVEL again - even though you KNOW you saw the word 'checkpoint reached' at least 3 or 4 times.
I give this game 2 out of 5 stars. I'm glad I didn't buy it - I'd be even more upset.<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by IndeX on 11/07/05 11:22 AM.</FONT></P>
Camera control is horrible. Slowdown - prolific. And the bad thing is that it's supposed to be intentional, as 'bullet time'. Only all it does is slow the game down and not allow you to attack. Mind you this is not counting when you actually USE the 'force' button to create bullet time. The game literally just slows down 'for effect' and it's REALLY annoying when you're in a crunch.
The point of the game is to go through the Matrix movies from Neo's point of view. Only they add in things that weren't in the Matrix. Some things are cool, like getting to the roof of the Metacortec building when Morpheus contacts you for the first time. You can actually try to make it (and eventually have to run down the stairs and get on Trinity's motorcycle). Stuff like that is neat, but other things are just annoying, like uring Neo's 'traning' with Tank (who is thankfully missing from the game) the training program 'corrupts', and you have to stay in there until they repair the program. Ugh. It's at this point that Tank decides you have to master the Katana - even though Neo never uses melee weapons other than a pole. Sounds like it would be cool - but once you pick up the Katana, the game decides it's time to 'decide when you can attack'. No slashing here and there - presumably an attempt to make the combat 'deep'. At random times Neo CANNOT and WILL NOT attack. He will sit there and take a beating. You can hit the attack button all you want. There's also a 'grab' button which works some of the time, but most of the time it acts like a 'shove' button. It breaks your opponent's defense and allows Neo to go in for a close up combo (which is just scripted - you don't actually control it).
The game has a dodge button that comes in handy about 2% of the time. The game prompts you when you can use the dodge button (cool idea - sort of like spider-sense) but you still get the shit kicked/slashed out of you WHILE YOU'RE DODGING THE ATTACK YOU WERE WARNED ABOUT.
Sometimes guys will 'dodoge' behind you when they are attacking - well, Neo must be a weakling because as soon as they move around him.. he gets dizzy. So then you have to use the dodge button. (see my above comments on the Dodge button for an explanation on this part)
You get stronger as you go through the game - gaining more awareness, more 'force' (bullet) time, and gaining more special moves that appear randomly in a fight.
One cool thing is that you can fight multiple opponents at a time - and as far as I got into the game (several levels) you can fight up to THREE at the same time!!!one!! Only while you're 'fighting' 3 people you are usually surrounded by 10 or more (seriously) and of the 3 people you are fighting at the same time - you can only ATTACK two of them. So while you're 'figthing' 2 of the 3 people allowed you are getting your ass beat by 9 or 10 other people - even though you're dodging. AWESOME design guys, simply awesome.
I don't believe the voice actors are actually Keanu, Lawrence and Carrie for the in-game cutscenes. During movie clips it obviously is. Its a lot like the Episode III game in that respect.
Hmm.. what else? Oh yeah - checkpoints. This game is of the 'checkpoints are for the birds - but sometimes we'll use them' philosophy. There is one level that isn't hard per se, but it's just long and annoying. If you get to the boss of this level and die - you start the ENTIRE LEVEL again - even though you KNOW you saw the word 'checkpoint reached' at least 3 or 4 times.
I give this game 2 out of 5 stars. I'm glad I didn't buy it - I'd be even more upset.<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by IndeX on 11/07/05 11:22 AM.</FONT></P>
