TGS 2005: The Matrix: Path of Neo Updated Hands-On

TOKYO--For gamers in the Western hemisphere, playing Japanese games is a way of life. But did you know our friends across the pond occasionally like to play games made in America, too? For instance, Atari Japan is bringing Shiny's new game based on The Matrix trilogy, Path of Neo, to the Japanese market, and we tried a new build of the game at the company's Tokyo Game Show booth to see what's new.

As the name indicates, Path of Neo puts you in the shoes of the trilogy's all-powerful hero, and you'll get to play through all of his major action scenes spanning all three movies. But in addition to the raucous combination of shooting and hand-to-hand combat action, Path of Neo will apparently contain some stealth elements. We played the sequence from the first film in which Neo--or at that point, Thomas Anderson--is contacted via cell phone by Morpheus in his office and instructed on how to escape the sea of cubicles before a small team of police officers and the Matrix's nefarious agents can find and apprehend him.

The stealth here was fairly simple--we had to duck our heads and dart across the walkways from one cubicle to another, and we could use the L1 button to back up against flat surfaces for better cover. The game made it fairly easy to figure out where we should be going to avoid being seen, since it highlighted the most appropriate hiding places with a bright green color. Our only complaint concerns the lack of a controllable camera in this sequence, since it was a little difficult to see who was coming and where we'd be seen when we couldn't look around freely for ourselves. Still, the sequence was functional enough, and we imagine there won't be too much of this stealth gameplay in the game anyway, with all the shooting and punching and kicking Neo has to do.

The Matrix: Path of Neo is due out later this year on all the major platforms. For more information, check out our other recent coverage of the game.