Line #50 VideoGame/EnterTheMatrix


1	[[quoteright:229:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Enter-The-Matrix-001_9706.png]]
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3	The 2003 tie-in video game to the saga of ''Franchise/TheMatrix'', ''Enter the Matrix'' follows Captain Niobe and the crew of the Logos and their side of the war. The narrative picks up just after the events of ''Anime/TheAnimatrix'' short "Final Flight of the Osiris", and weaves in and out of the plot of ''Film/TheMatrixReloaded''.
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5	Gameplay consists of a lot of running, fighting, slo-mo, shooting, driving and occasional problem-solving, as you use your free-minded character to take on endless {{mooks}} and escape the occasional agent or two (or loads, in the case of Agent Smith). The game is also notable for having over 40 minutes of live-action cutscenes shot alongside ''The Matrix Reloaded'' and utilizing its cast, sets and crew. That footage was later released separately on the LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition and would be interesting to see even for those who will find the graphics of the game itself long outdated to even bother with.
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7	At the time of its release, it had the biggest budget ever for a video game, perhaps due to its use of SerkisFolk and live-action cutscenes. Unfortunately, it was [[ChristmasRushed rushed out]] in order to be released at the same time as ''The Matrix Reloaded'', and as a result, has more than its share of gameplay issues, to the mixed reviews of most. Nevertheless, ''Enter the Matrix'' does a good job of filling in some of the gaps left by the films, and the game's creators insist that the ''Matrix'' saga is not complete without it. It was followed by 2005's ''VideoGame/TheMatrixPathOfNeo''.
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9	!!Tropes used in this game:
10	* AbsurdlyShortLevel: One level in the vampire mansion, "Return to the Great Hall", consists of walking three steps from one door to another in the same room.
11	* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: The Sewer level takes place in one, which is big enough to hold multiple gunfights with dozens of cops.
12	* ActionGirl: Niobe.
13	* AdaptationalBadass: In the films, the exiles were rather easy to kill with sharp weapons or bullets, and were fairly easy to beat by an average redpill. Here, they're ImmuneToBullets and only die from a stake/crossbow shot to the heart or a fall from sufficient height, and they're much better fighters in general.
14	* AllThereInTheManual: In this case, the game ''is'' the manual for ''Film/TheMatrixReloaded'' - several scenes in the movie only get full meaning after you've seen them from the game side.
15	* AscendedExtra:
16	** Ghost and Sparks. Niobe is a fairly important supporting character in the movies, but her two subordinates were just background characters with extremely brief appearances. In this game, Ghost becomes the protagonist (if you choose to play as him) and Sparks is the always-present PluckyComicRelief.
17	** Captain Soren, another background character from the movies, has a major subplot where the player helps him rescue one of his crew from the agents.
18	* TheBrute: Vlad [[note]] If you play as Niobe[[/note]] and Cujo [[note]] If you play as Ghost[[/note]] serve as this to the Merovingian.
19	* BulletTime: Par for the course, being a game set in the ''Matrix'' universe.
20	* ButtonMashing: Especially during BulletTime.
21	* TheCameo: You ''can'' talk to Trinity when on the Matrix console, but it's pre-automated. You'll also not want to tell her that you're screwing around on the drives.
22	* TheCaptain: Niobe.
23	* CoolSword: Requires some hacking and mucking around in a security-protected system, but worth it.
24	* ContinuityOverlap: The game immediately follows the events of "The Final Flight of the Osiris", then runs parallel with the events of ''Reloaded'' before concluding just prior to the beginning of ''Revolutions''.
25	* CutsceneIncompetence: At one point in the fight with Cujo, the game will override the controls so that he will effortlessly slap you down. If you've been completely curb-stomping him up to that point, the effect is a little jarring.
26	* CutscenePowerToTheMax
27	* DeadpanSnarker: Sparks.
28	* DemotedToExtra: Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity only have a few fleeting appearances in cutscenes. Trinity is the only one who you actually encounter in gameplay, and only if you choose to play as Ghost.
29	* EarlyBirdCameo: The Trainman makes a fleeting cameo in the cutscene at the end of the airport level. He didn't actually appear in the movies until ''Revolutions'', which came out after the game.
30	* EasyLevelTrick: In one level you are evading an army of Smith clones around a city. However the entire level can be bypassed simply by heading right at the start of the level instead of left, as the game tells you.
31	* EmptyRoomPsych: When playing as Niobe, one level in the vampire mansion consists of walking from one door to another in the same room, then just loading the next level. Considering how dodgy the game was, chances are it was just oversight on someone's part.
32	* {{Foreshadowing}}: The Trainman's cryptic dialogue during his cameo foreshadows one of the big reveals of ''Reloaded'': [[spoiler:that this isn't the first iteration of Zion and the Machines have destroyed it before.]]
33	* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Canonically, only Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus have ever killed an agent. In practice, Niobe and Ghost can kill every agent they meet by throwing them off buildings or other [[AchillesHeel environmental exploits]] when the agents initially spawn. With practice, the player can execute a OneHitKill every time, even without entering BulletTime.
34	* TheGhost: Oddly enough, ''[[TheHero Neo]]''. He's constantly referred to, but only appears in a cutscene scene where he saves Morpheus and the Keymaker from the truck crash. However, he does appear [[https://youtu.be/puJ_MkjnpVo?t=1m14s in a deleted cutscene]], and you can unlock an audio message from him in hacking mode.
35	* GuysSmashGirlsShoot: Inverted. Ghost is a better marksman, so at several points during the shared missions he stays to cover Niobe's kung-fu from above.
36	* IfYouDieICallYourStuff: Sparks is definitely guilty of this.
37	** Before the very first mission: "Oh, and if Ghost doesn't make it, can I have his boots?"
38	** Also during the Freeway chase: "Can I have your personal processing unit?"
39	* ImprobableAimingSkills: Comes with the territory given that this is part of the ''Matrix'' franchise, though some examples stand out more than others, such as Ghost shooting out the nose wheel of a Gulfstream jet from an airport control tower as the plane's beginning to take off, a feat even an expert sniper would find difficult to replicate.
40	* {{Interquel}}: The first two stages (the Post Office and the Airport) take place between ''Film/TheMatrix'' and ''Film/TheMatrixReloaded''.
41	* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: In this game, it's revealed that Ghost has some strong romantic feelings for Trinity. He chooses to keep their relationship platonic, however, because he knows that she's in love with Neo.
42	* TheLancer: Story-wise, Ghost is this to Niobe. Gameplay-wise, though, he'll technically be the protagonist if you choose to play as him.
43	* LiveActionCutscene: Some of the live-action cutscenes were filmed alongside ''Film/TheMatrixReloaded''. Said cutscenes were later repackaged as a special feature for the DVD and Blu-ray collection sets.
44	* LockedInTheDungeon: Either Niobe or Ghost (depending on who you play as) will end up in the Merovingian's dungeon in the chateau level, forcing the other to come rescue them.
45	* MacGuffin: The Package in the first few levels.
46	* MercyMode: If you lose the fight with Seraph in Dojo, then the entire Smiths chase consisting of multiple levels is skipped. Instead, you get a different cutscene and proceed straight to the second to last level onboard the hovercraft.
47	* MythologyGag: In the cutscene where Niobe is calling the meeting of the ship captains to order, one of them tells her that everyone has arrived except the crew of the ''Nebuchadnezzar''. She rolls her eyes and says, "Figures. Anything for an entrance." We never see Morpheus and his crew enter, but the line is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Morpheus' dramatic out-of-nowhere entrance in the movie.
48	* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Invoked by Niobe during the opening mission to retrieve the last transmission of the ''Osiris''. Niobe and Thaddeus were good friends, so Niobe knows that Thaddeus ''hated'' emergency broadcast drops; he ''never'' used them before or trusted them. That Thaddeus would do so ''now'' sets off all of Niobe's internal alarms. She knows that whatever's in that drop -- whatever it was that cost the lives of Thaddeus and the ''Osiris'' crew -- ''must'' be important.
49	* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome:
50	** Because Niobe and Ghost's paths diverge at some points, there are a few inevitable ones. If you play as Ghost in the airport level, for example, you won't get to see Niobe's dramatic rescue of Axel. And if you play as Niobe, you won't get to see Ghost's fight with Trinity.
51	** Inverted with the climactic assault on the power plant. It's extremely important to the plot of the movie, but it's only seen in the game.
52	* OnceMoreWithClarity: Multiple scenes from ''Reloaded'' are revisited from the perspective of Team Niobe, adding new context that wasn't present in the film (such as the Captains summit, or Niobe and Ghost saving Morpheus during the Freeway chase).
53	* OurVampiresAreDifferent: The player encounters several vampires in the Merovingian's Chateau. They can be killed with wooden stakes, which somehow "Disrupts their code".
54	* PassThePopcorn: During his cameo, the Trainman sarcastically identifies himself to Niobe as a spectator enjoying the ride.
55	* POVSequel: The game's events take place just before and within ''Film/TheMatrixReloaded'' from the perspective of the crew of the ''Logos'' (Niobe, Ghost, and Sparks).
56	* RescueEquipmentAttack: One of the weapons available is the "Chloro-Bromo Methane Gun", described as a fire extinguisher combined with a grenade launcher. It works as an effective weapon as a cartridge detonating near a person causes their lungs to fill with liquid, thus drowning them.
57	%%* ResidualSelfImage: Niobe, Ghost and every other rebel.
58	%%* SarcasticDevotee: Sparks.
59	* SequelHook: The ending is basically "Phew, that was close. Now go watch ''Film/TheMatrixRevolutions!''"
60	* SequenceBreaking: The level with you evading an army of Smiths around a city can be entirely bypassed simply by heading right at the start of the level instead of left, as the game tells you.
61	** In the office building level you have to navigate the outside of the building on the construction frame. When you reach a specific part the game spawns a Smith dropping down in front of you and breaks the platform you're standing on. But if you are in the middle of a wall-run your character continues the wall run, watches Smith break the platform before reaching the next platform. Doing so allows you to skip the rest of that part of the level, since no Smiths spawn.
62	** In the same level, if you simply charge the first Smith that drops down in front of you and do a specific (but short, only 3 moves) string of moves, you'll force the Smith into a knockback animation that sends him falling into a pit he has no way out of. You can then take a leisurely stroll through the rest of the level.
63	* SerkisFolk: Anthony Wong and Creator/JadaPinkettSmith famously motion captured all of the moves in the game.
64	* ShoutOut: The Merovingian's brutish werewolf minion is named Cujo, a reference to the Creator/StephenKing novel about [[Literature/{{Cujo}} a rabid dog]].
65	* TheSmartGuy: Sparks.
66	* SupportingProtagonist: Niobe. She's the protagonist of the game (though you can choose to play as [[TheLancer Ghost]]), but Neo is the protagonist of the series.
67	* StoryBranchFavoritism: While a couple of the story missions have the two playable characters tackling different goals to accomplish the mission (The Airport, and Power Plant) or change up the gameplay based on which player you chose (Niobe does the driving and Ghost does the shooting in any vehicle level), most of the levels will have the player character take point while the other character either sits things out or has to be rescued (post office, sewer, Merovingian's mansion, and the final Oracle and Smith stages) in these cases, Niobe's storyline is considered the "canon" version of events, particularly her meeting scene with the Oracle.
68	* {{Tuckerization}}: Seraph's teahouse is located on "Wu Ping avenue", named after the fight coordinator for the Matrix movies.
69	* WarriorPoet: Ghost. As well as being a top-notch martial artist and marksman, he references various philosophers, including David Hume, William James and Friedrich Nietzsche.
70	* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: Inverted. The game deliberately takes ludicrously destructive routes for relatively simple tasks - justified in that the Machines (a.k.a. the game's programmers) are doing everything they can to make those tasks as difficult as possible.
71	** The entire first mission, 8 levels, is to retrieve a tape from a post-office box dead drop - except the police are already inside the building ''opening all the mail'' trying to intercept the tape, and the tape is the [[BringNewsBack final message]] of a captain who explicitly hated dead drops because he knows that such interceptions are common.
72	** The Airport is ASimplePlan to call all the ship captains to a meeting that is interrupted by a rescue mission.
73	** The resulting meeting in the sewers is interrupted by a raid by hundreds of cops chopping phone lines as they head in.
74	** Finally, they blow up a nuclear power plant at the climax of the film to disable the alarms in a high security building - as everything in that building, ''everything'', has a backup system/defense mechanism; One that would ''blow up the whole building and everyone in it.''

Context VideoGame / EnterTheMatrix