Enter the Matrix

Posting may be blippy until I finish playing "Enter the Matrix." This is the first "modern" game I've ever played, and it's pretty damned addictive. My last real quality time w/any sort of console game was "Sonic the Hedgehog" on the Sega Genesis system. I think that was in about 1995 and it was a couple of years old then, so this is a major leap in game playing. What Do I Know had an amusing post a while back about how addictive these things can be; I thought he was kidding. Now it looks like I might have to do what he did and expel the thing from my house if I ever want to get anything done.

Of course, I think a big part of the appeal is just that this game is related to the Matrix franchise, which as you know, I'm obsessed with. You may have heard that the game features about an hour of new footage that wasn't in "Reloaded" but which is supposed to fill in holes and add detail to what is in the movie. Those are some of the best parts, and it's fun to play knowing that you might be rewarded w/more movie footage just around the next corner. Yes, some of it seems redundant and none if it thus far has been earth shattering, but two scenes stand out. In the first, a grizzled old man laughs maniacally at Niobe (played in the movie by Jada Pinkett-Smith and one of the main characters of "Enter the Matrix") just as she's about to jack out of the matrix. The man keeps repeating "72 hours," and when Niobe asks what he's talking about, all he'll say is "that's how long the last Zion lasted: 72 hours" (followed by more maniacal laughter). Is this important to the greater story arch of the three films? Maybe. Maybe not.

The other notable scene is a duplication of the scene from "Reloaded" when Persephone (the Merovingian's wife/girlfriend/lover) forces Neo to kiss her like he means it. In the game, Persephone forces Niobe to do the same thing. I guess the W Brothers figured gamers would dig some hot girl-on-girl action? But why duplicate scenes like this? (There's also a lot of similarities between a lot of the scenes w/the Keymaster in both the game on the movie, except in the game the characters interacting w/the Keymaster are Niobe and Ghost instead of Neo, Trinity, and Morpheous.)

Ok, so that's much more than you ever wanted to know about a video game, but in semi-related news, apparently Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) recently pulled jury duty. And in the same surreal vein, Egypt has banned "Reloaded". I guess they don't know the revolution will not be cinematized.

Posted June 13, 2003 02:30 PM | ai movies