Good enough for Matrix fans. For everyone else, it's just a waste of your time.
First I must say that though you do get a back story, it really isn’t too much to satisfy Matrix fans or even someone looking for a game with a decent story. Also the fact that the game is rather short and playing through it again with the other character doesn’t give much satisfaction. The voice acting and production are of high quality, but that wasn’t something anyone would expect to be bad. The story would have been put to better use as an animated or live-action short film in the Animatrix.
Well as far as the graphics go, they seem bland and boring and a bit out-dated. Though I will say I have no idea how it looks on other platforms, on the PS2 it’s just plain ugly. Even with that we still get bad frame rate at times which slows down the gameplay as with all the long load times. If you are expecting this game to mimic the Matrix visually than you probably also expected the Matrix: Reloaded to be way better than the first. Both statements being something only someone without any sense of knowledge would say and honestly believe.
The gameplay doesn’t help the game either. The hand-to-hand combat is fun at the beginning, but gets old fast as you realize you just keep doing the same thing and keep watching the same animations, not that the animations are bad or anything. I won’t even talk about the driving and shooting sequences as all I can really say is that they absolutely and utterly horrible. Also, being that this is the game based on the movie that made “bullet time” so popular you would expect it to be a great feature. Sadly this is not the case and that’s mainly attributed to the fact that most of the time you really don’t even need to use it because of the bad AI. The only interesting gameplay feature is the ability to “hack” the game which is done through the main menu. This is where you can just get info or input cheats, but this feature also gets old fast.
Honestly I think this game had the potential to be great, but it fell way short of my hopes and of the expectations most had. If you are a huge Matrix fan, rent it if you really want to see some pointless back story that leaves you wondering why you just wasted time playing through this game. If you’re not a fan of the Matrix then just stay away from this game unless you are just really desperate. Basically this is just another item in the Matrix series that just falls way flat to comparing with the original movie. I recommend that if you want a Matrix fix, rent The Matrix: Path of Neo, it’s the best Matrix game out there and it is quite enjoyable. I also recommend Max Payne 1 and 2 which are both excellent games that use “bullet time” in a way that makes you need to use it. Though if your looking to play Max Payne 2 I recommend the PC version because I found it to be superior to the PS2 version in many ways.