As for the actual gameplay once you get to it, it’s a little bit of light
puzzle-solving mixed in with a heavy dose of fighting. As you probably can
guess, the fighting is hindered by the aforementioned camera and control issues,
but it is really cool to watch when things work right. Neo has a large number of
moves and combos and many of them are pretty impressive. It’s fun to watch Neo
vault, flip, and perform feats of gravity-defying gymnastics as he takes out
Agents and other enemies – but then it’s not too much fun when an attack is
slightly misaligned and you have to watch him go through a lengthy combo while
attacking no one in particular. The game also has gun attacks but these are
rendered ineffective by a screwy auto-targeting system. It’s hard to get a lock
on the enemy that you want instead of one selected seemingly at random and the
lock remains on an enemy after he is killed. Since gunshots can also knock down
an enemy, there’s no easy well to tell if you’ve killed an enemy or if he will
be getting back up again.
Of course this wouldn’t be a Matrix game without the ability to slow time
around you, unleashing a flurry of attacks before your enemy can react or
dodging bullets in flight. As you land hits on enemies you’ll fill a “focus”
meter and pulling the left trigger unleashes this focus and sends your foes into
slow motion. Attacks unleashed while using focus look fantastic and does the
action in the films justice.
Graphically the game is a mix of good and bad. The in-game graphics are on
the ugly side, with chunky textures that can at times look pretty bad. For
example, in his close-ups Morpheus’ face looks like he just made his way through
a Vegas buffet without ever using his hands. The cutscenes between the missions
are very slick and well-produced high-speed montages of scenes from the Matrix
movies. While anyone unfamiliar with the films will find it all quite impossible
to follow, everyone else will enjoy the cutscenes.
Overall the most frustrating thing about The Path of Neo is that it has its
good and enjoyable parts, but ultimately falls short due to poor execution and
some questionable design decisions. If you are a big fan of all things Matrix,
then it is probably worth a rental for you. If you’re just looking for a great
action game, then you’ll have to keep looking.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
68%. It’s the best Matrix game to date, but Matrix games still have a
ways to go…
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