After a few hours tinkering around with Enter the Matrix, one word comes to mind: mediocre. It’s not that my expectations have been let down; I didn’t really have any expectations for this game. I didn’t follow it that much before its release, and until Alex wrote up his preview a couple weeks ago, I knew almost nothing at all.

Taken on its own merits, and in comparison to the countless other third-person action games we’ve all played, Enter the Matrix is just very average. After just completing the first mission with both Ghost and Niobe, the two playable characters, I’ve played through some really exciting gunfights and some really awkward exploration sequences. The movement is jerky, the animation mostly laughable, and the controls overly complex. Yet the frequent gunfights and brawls can be quite involving and very cool to watch, not to mention fun to play.

To say there are pacing issues would be a vast understatement. For one thing, the game is broken up into pieces of wildly varying length, some of which last up to ten minutes and others which can be completed in less than thirty seconds, even on the first try. After each “chunk” of gameplay, including the ridiculously short ones, there’s a real-time cinema scene, some loading times, and then a chance to save the game. The breaks are really oddly chosen too. Some chunks involve almost entirely exploration, which is not exactly the game’s strong suit. One chunk features an incredible gunfight in the lobby of a U.S. Post Office, followed by a series of several uneventful rooms that you have to trudge through before the break. None of this is a major problem, but it is odd enough that it’s hard to get sucked into the game and really enjoy the experience…which a game based on The Matrix should be focusing on.

Speaking of Focus, that’s what they’re calling Enter the Matrix’s version of “bullet-time”, which of course was inspired by the first Matrix film but has since been beaten to death in dozens of video games. At least the implementation here is quite balanced; you can use Focus at any time, but doing so drains a special meter that refills fairly quickly. You are thusly encouraged to use Focus on a regular basis, and you will be happy to do so, because it enables all kinds of special moves and advantages in combat. What isn’t balanced is your character’s health, which recharges even faster than the Focus meter, as long as you stand still and don’t get hit for a few seconds. If you take too much damage during a particularly frantic action scene, you can literally go hide in a corner until your health recharges all the way. There’s no basis at all for this ability in the Matrix films, and I can only assume it was done late in development in order to make the game easier for its mass-market audience. Not that the game is a total cakewalk even with the constant recharges, but I’d rather the game were balanced in other ways, such as giving the player more ammo or a better targeting system.

Another real disappointment is the lack of differentiation between the two characters. Ghost and Niobe take different roles during the car and hovercraft sections, and their other missions do have slight differences, but for the most part they’re exactly the same. So…why am I expected to play through the game with both of them? Their cutscenes aren’t even unique; you just get to hear different voice actors saying almost exactly the same thing, while the other characters chat along with the same lines regardless of which character has been chosen. And the first car scene, while certainly offering a different experience for each character, is just as bland with either one of them. You can go with the simple yet confusing driving mode or the simple yet confusing shooting mode.

If there’s one thing Enter the Matrix really nails, it’s the presentation. The FMV scenes look just like the newest movie, except they’re totally exclusive to the game. All the real actors have recorded the game’s voices. The menus and transition screens are appreciably snazzy. And the icing on the cake is the excellent hacking mode, which houses all of the game’s secrets, cheats, etc. If you’ve ever poked around in DOS or played a text adventure game, you’ll slide into Enter the Matrix’s version of hacking very quickly. A clever interface keeps you from having to manually type in commands over and over. You start out with very limited access, but after some experimentation (and a piece of scratch paper to write down all the passwords and codes), you’ll start to open up more and more of this addictive little mini-game. Eventually you’ll gain access to extra modes, art assets, level maps, and even the ability to drop weapon caches into the main game’s levels. The only disappointing thing about hacking is its brevity. The art gallery and weapon drops continue to open up throughout the game, but the actual hacking is pretty short and won’t last long against an experienced DOS user. Shiny could have taken this feature much, much farther, and it could almost stand up as its own game. As it stands, hacking is still my favorite part of Enter the Matrix so far.

I’ve only seen one (long) mission, so I don’t want to pass judgement on this game too early. But it’s safe to say that most gamers would do best to try before they buy…and if nothing else, a rental is plenty of time to experience the sweet hacking mode.