This summer, they released the sequel, The Matrix Reloaded, which introduced viewers to new characters and some pretty unique plot twists, the most unique of which was a tie-in with a licensed videogame, Enter the Matrix. The storyline from this game bleeds into The Matrix Reloaded, making them both an integral part of one another. The problem is, while the game does everything it can to be as cool as the movies it is spawned from, it’s really just another third-person action title with plenty of slow-motion butt kicking and very little real design behind it. Is Enter the Matrix a bad game? Not in the least. But it is a hopelessly average game, not nearly worthy of its namesake.

The storyline for Enter the Matrix picks up where the short film "Final Flight of the Osiris" leaves off. The crew of the Osiris fought valiantly to deliver a message to Neo, the salvation of mankind, but they were wiped out by the machines before they could hand deliver it. So, they did the next best thing: they put the message on a tape and threw it in the local virtual mailbox. This is where Enter the Matrix begins, with your character fighting his or her way through post offices and other Matrix-inspired environments to get hold of the message and deliver it to Neo.

When you start the game, you’ll choose from one of two super-cool characters, Niobe or Ghost. Both are pretty standard fighting fare, each armed with an arsenal of kicks, chops and cool Matrix moves to get them through the game. Both characters play quite well, and you’ll frequently encounter whichever character you don’t choose in the cutscenes where their stories intersect.

Once you’ve started playing the game, you’ll find Enter the Matrix is long on style and short on substance. It’s nothing more than your average beat ‘em up title with some fun Matrix moves thrown in. Combat, which is what this game is all about, is handled by hitting punch, kick, grab or weapons fire buttons when close enough to your opponents. There’s also "focus," which slows everything down to "bullet time" and allows you to dodge enemy weapons while delivering a series of combat moves that were intended to look cool but often are more frustrating than useful.

When you’re in focus mode and time is slowed, you can throw around some insane combat moves such as running up a wall, backflipping and delivering a double-axe kick on the way down. This would be cool, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s all you need to finish the game. Focus power throws the game completely out of balance, and ensures it won’t take you very long to finish this title. The fact that the enemy AI is practically nonexistent doesn’t help things either, as you can forgo focus power completely and still devastate all of the opposition with some swift button mashing.

And button mashing is what combat is all about in Enter the Matrix, as player-controlled combos simply don’t exist. Your job is to simply hammer on the punch and kick buttons when in front of an opponent (usually a cop, SWAT trooper or the occasional Agent) and let the game string together combo moves for you. Keep pressing the kick button, and your character will deliver a mix of roundhouses, spin kicks and jump kicks, none of which you can control. The same goes for punches, and heaven forbid you try to string kicks and punches together. The game is so slow to respond to key presses that you’ll rarely be able to deliver a mix of attacks. It’s no big deal, though, since you can pick any one of the attack methods (punch, kick or grapple) and play through the entire game. While guns are available, they’re pretty much a waste of time as you can easily close the gap with an opponent by going into focus mode, then deliver a few dozen crushing blows to your opponents at close range. This game is so unbalanced in the player’s favor that even the hard setting feels like a cake walk.

Levels consist of the same idea rehashed in different locales. You fight through swarms of opponents, perform a few platform-oriented moves such as walking on beams and jumping into air ducts, then go off to fight some more. The really interesting actions happen in the cutscenes, which are entirely too short and yet manage to have more content than the game level they introduce.

Vehicles play a minor part in Enter the Matrix, as you can control some cars and hovercraft. The good thing is, the vehicles are easy to control. The bad thing is, like the weapons, they are a waste of time. The vehicle levels do little to service the plot and are obviously there so the designers could proudly proclaim "we’ve got vehicle levels!"

The levels within Enter the Matrix are just plain dull. There’s no real level design so to speak, which is probably because they had very little time to put this whole game together. Most of the levels feel identical; they’re just renamed and slightly remapped. Graphically, they are flat and lifeless, lacking any detail that could pull you into the world of the Matrix.

Character models are a bit of a mixed bag, with the two leads looking pretty good, and everyone else looking about as generic as possible without having barcodes across their foreheads. I understand the Matrix is all about conformity, but when you’re making an action game, you have to give players a feeling that they are doing something more than whacking the same bad guy repeatedly.

Animation is another mixed issue. While player movement looks smooth most of the time, there are moments of sheer hilarity, such as when characters climb fences or jump. Fence climbing makes the character look like a spider on stimulants, and jumping, well, there’s no way to describe it, it’s just plain bad. On top of the mishmash style of animation, you’ve got a frame rate that’s all over the map. One minute, everything is smooth as silk, the next, it’s choppier than the North Sea in a winter squall. Along with the animation comes a heaping helping of clipping, which makes it difficult to figure out what’s going on at times, especially when you’re stuck halfway through a wall.

Last but not least, there’s the camera. Considering that Enter the Matrix is meant to be a cinematic experience, you’d expect a near-perfect camera. Alas, this is not the case. The camera moves so quickly you’d swear a squirrel was at the helm. There were many times I wished I could have used the focus powers to slow down the camera itself, thus giving me a minute to get my bearings. In heated combat with multiple enemies, you’ll go insane trying to keep up with the camera, which continually changes directions. Thankfully the opposition is so dumb you could close your eyes and still finish most of this game.

Shiny’s sound team did a nice job matching up the sound in the game to that of the film. All the combat sounds are there, from the bone-crunching thud of a kick to the ribs to the crack and zip of a bullet ripping through the air in slow motion, it all sounds good.

If you’re a fan of the soundtrack from the Matrix films, you’ll love this game’s score. It readily shifts from mellow to dramatic, heart pounding to high-tech, and it does so at just the right moments.

Enter the Matrix is very linear, and as such, it doesn’t offer a whole lot of replay value. Once you’ve played through it, you could jack the difficulty up and try again, but due to the uninspired level design, it won’t be a very different experience. Matrix die-hards will repeatedly play through the entire game trying to spot the inconsistencies with the film mythos, but the rest of us will just play through it once to see where it takes us and move on to more complex fighting titles.

Enter the Matrix is an average game based on an exceptional license, and this may be its downfall. If we hadn’t been expecting something as spectacular as the films, this game might have ranked slightly above average. Since it is based on an amazingly cool franchise and has the Wachowski seal of approval, we expect more of it, and it frankly doesn’t deliver. If you’re looking for a button-mashing beat-em-up game in the vein of Double Dragon but placed in the Matrix universe, Enter the Matrix is just the gaming fix you’ll need. But a fix is all this game should be. Enter the Matrix is best experienced as a rental.