The Matrix is famous for its spectacular action sequences and its distinct sense of style. But it's also notorious for burying all that silver-screen excitement under a heavy-handed parable filled with overt biblical references and assorted philosophical agendas. Either way, the movies' premise--artificially intelligent machines have incarcerated humankind in a virtual prison resembling our everyday lives, whose rules can be bent and broken by will alone--makes for a compelling setting for a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Sure enough, the Matrix Online has a lot of original ideas that are clearly inspired by concepts from the movies it's based on. Granted, it's not that different from the many other games of its kind, since it's characterized by the same sort of time-consuming and generally repetitive gameplay that's conventional to the genre. It's also beset with glitches and an overall lack of polish, above and beyond what's par for the course in a style of gaming in which rough edges are to be expected. It's not that this is a game that only hardcore Matrix fans would enjoy (since they certainly might not), it's that it takes the same sort of person who can appreciate the entire movie trilogy in spite of its flaws to appreciate this game. It's got some very good qualities, but you'll need to wade through a lot of potential frustrations to enjoy them.

The real world runs at a much smoother frame rate than The Matrix Online.

The Matrix Online takes place in the Matrix itself (a place also known as the Metro World) after the conclusion of The Matrix Revolutions, during a time of an uneasy truce between the machines and the humans. A third group called the exiles, comprising self-aware humanlike programs that have appropriated the Matrix as their home, further complicates matters. Amid all this, you play as a newly awakened "redpill"--a human freed from servitude to the machines and made conscious of the state of the real world and the nature of the Matrix. You'll initially begin your journey in the service of Zion, the last bastion of humankind on Earth, who'll help train you to survive and thrive in The Matrix. But, soon enough, you'll have the option of choosing to align yourself with any of the three organizations vying for priority in the Matrix.

One of the most enticing aspects of The Matrix Online, at least in theory, is the promise of an evolving storyline that develops based on players' actions. The game has a smattering of voice-over to augment key moments, such as your meetings with the leaders of the different factions, but most of the "story," such as it is, unfolds in simple text messages during the many missions you'll undertake. The dialogue is sprinkled with occasional typos and isn't especially remarkable otherwise, but Matrix devotees will still like to think that their actions in the game have a greater meaning. And, to the game's credit, it does a good job of defining the discrete identities of the three major organizations: the determined humans, struggling to coexist with their one-time oppressors; the machines, working to assert their authority in a changing world; and the exiles, a shadowy group resembling a criminal underworld. While the humans are ostensibly the "good guys" in the struggle, the other two sides are somewhat sympathetic in their own right, and being able to play as a human in league with the machines or the exiles is an interesting option. In practice, though, your choice of allegiance doesn't have a significant impact on what you do in the game. You'll be undertaking similar types of missions over and over no matter what, and the only difference is that you'll be performing them for one organization at the expense of the other two.

The nuts and bolts of the gameplay in The Matrix Online are reminiscent of what you do in other online RPGs, so much so that even the manual acknowledges that the Metro World's "hackers" and "operatives" are equivalent to the wizards and warriors you'd find in other such games. So if you've played other online RPGs before--especially ones with science fiction elements, such as Anarchy Online or City of Heroes--then you'll be in fairly familiar territory from the moment you start playing The Matrix Online. Gameplay is heavily focused on quasi-turn-based combat, structured around randomly generated missions that send you to different locations in search of targets or objects. You earn currency, experience points, and loot (in the form of guns, gender-specific clothing, and other items) from accomplishing these missions and from defeating opponents. You may take on missions alone or in teams consisting of several players. It's also possible for players to form more-permanent groups of up to a dozen, called "crews" (like the hovercraft crews seen in the Matrix movies), and multiple crews can form a "faction," which is equivalent to a guild in other games of this type. In addition to fighting foes using hand-to-hand combat, guns, and "viruses" (i.e., magic spells), players can create useful items by "compiling" them. In short, The Matrix Online offers most of the features you may have come to expect from this kind of game, though they're all thinly veiled within the fiction of the game's universe. Despite a somewhat clunky interface, The Matrix Online also has a few of its own perks, such as a built-in media player and built-in AOL Instant Messenger compatibility.

The game's open-ended character-development system lets you freely customize what kinds of abilities you bring to bear.

Probably the most original trait of The Matrix Online is how it doesn't force players to lock themselves into a particular character profession, but instead allows them the freedom to mix and match different abilities at their whim. So, much like how Neo rapidly mastered a variety of martial arts or how Trinity suddenly understood how to fly a helicopter just in the nick of time, it's possible to customize your character's proficiencies in The Matrix Online and make dramatic changes to your skill set on the fly. But the system isn't as open-ended as you might expect. As in other online RPGs, your character has an overall experience level, which directly influences both how powerful you are and how many abilities you can have "loaded" at the same time. It also limits which abilities you're capable of using. So, for example, while every character begins with basic self-defense skills, it's not until you reach the 10th level--which should take the average player from 20 to 30 hours of play--that you can learn kung fu (and karate and aikido).