A must have for Matrix fans, but worth a rental for anyone who likes a solid, but chaotic beat-em-up.
The Matrix trilogy was a big hit in the theaters with it's fancy special effects and blistering, jaw breaking, pulse rising, heart stopping over the top non-stop action. 2003's Enter the Matrix failed to deliver the full potencial of the movie franchise, disapointing fans by only disposing of 2 playable characters: Niobe and Ghost.
For the few enduring fans who still think fondly of the Matrix trilogy, who have the inner curiosity of being The One and fully enjoying to the extreme his abilities while enjoying a functional, but sometimes chaotic beat-em-up get right up and go to the store and buy The Matrix: Path of Neo.
For everybody else who's just looking for a good, special effect filled beat-em-up go to the local video store and rent this game.
The Matrix: Path of Neo his a pretty good game overall, with some clean graphics and good voice acting and sound effects. The frame rate can get a little choppy sometimes when the screen is crammed up with Agents with everything breaking apart and all hell breaking loose. The character models aren't the most detailed models in the world but still do a good job in immersing the player in the game world.
The Matrix: Path of Neo features all of the original movie cast's voices helping to keep the player in the fictional world of The Matrix.
As you progress trough the game, Neo will develop new abilities, somewhat like a RPG but nowhere near that, if you know what I mean. In the beginning of the game there is a short tutorial in a form of a training program to help you familiarize with the control and the new combo mechanic.
The game lacks a solid narrative for those who never seen the films, leaving a mist of confusion about the storyline. The game also fails to project a coherent link from film to film. When you get to a certain part of the game big chunks of film moments are ripped and edited with only the bare essentials that we need to know to understand some of the story.
Neo has an incredible amount of different kung-fu animations which help to bring the game out of monotony and can also use many melee weapons to dish out serious bad ass moves like the spinning stick thing in the second film. He can do everything he could in the movie including dodging bullets, running along walls and jump 6 m upwards and float a bit.
The controls are a bit complicated for the casual player but for the hardcore brawler player it's farly pick up and play.
The Matrix: Path of Neo also features a totally new and surprising ending with it's one exclusive movie segment produced exclusively for the game.
Conclusively, The Matrix: Path of Neo is mechanically a much better game than it's predecessor, with highly destructive environments, a whole batch of baddass martial arts that are easy to execute and a great voice acting.
The game certainly would have been a lot better with a little more polish, a more concentrated story, a better narrative and less chaos on the action.
In the end, if you are a Matrix fan, go ahead buy it, on the other hand if your looking for a pretty solid but chaotic brawler and just have plain fun it's only worth a rental.