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Buyer Beware

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 14 / 45
Date: May 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Watch out. I bought this at (...), and when I attempted to install it, it proclaimed in a somewhat demeaning fashion, "WRONG DISK INSERTED." Bullsh*t, I said, it was disk 2. I called the Customer Service place and asked to speak to the highest ranking guy there. He said, "Oh. Ummm... yeah. We've heard of this happening. That's a defective disk. You should return it." I do so, and get another defective one. I call again. "Hmm. The store probably got a bad lot of them. You can send it to *whatever address it was* and they should fix it." Well, It's now been a month or two with no response let alone a replacement. I double-checked that I DID send it to the right address, and I did. Just be careful when you buy this. And if you're thinking of being an employee at SEGA/Monolith or whoever, be sure youre an ***hole, and that you dont mind sending ou screwed up CDs knowingly, then laughing at the poor SOB who wasted 50 dollars... I feel sad now...

Not worth the 20$ I paid for it

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 12
Date: February 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Having played many other MMO's over the years, I finally found a copy of the Matrix Online at a store recently, and decided to give it a whirl. I am a fan of the Matrix movies, and of the Animatrix, as well as a big fan of the Cyberpunk genera in general. In theory the Matrix Online should have been a great product, as it has so many elements to draw from to make a good game.

However I quickly found myself to be very dissatisfied with my purchase. The introduction to the game was very well done, in which you learned how to control your character and interact with the environment. However the tutorial did not adequately explain how to utilize the UI properly.

Once I actually entered into the world, there was no clear goal, path or set of activities to begin to start getting "into" the game. Travel to the various points was akwardly done, and travel times between even nearby locations is way too high. The UI interface is difficult at best to deal with, and there is no real obviously visible indication when another character tries to communicate with you (tells/whispers/etc.).

All in all I do not rate this game very highly, and would not recommend it to anyone.

No Mac version - this sucks

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 35
Date: March 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I can't believe that the developers would make this a PC-only game!!! I think that really sucks. Shame on you Warner Bros.

the matrix online sucks!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 16
Date: April 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Well I've been playing this game all night trying to make the most of it. Give it somewhat of a chance. From what I see this game could be pretty good but its far from complete. The game lags WAAAAAAY too much. I have all the lowest settings on and it's nothing but lag. The server doesnt seem crowded at all... yet when you go near a small crowd you will start to feel the pull. Lag is definitely one of the main concerns with me because you almost cant get anything done. Anytime I log into "The Matrix" it has that green number line crap all over the place. This doesnt go away for about 2 minutes. During this time I can't even move. I have to wait till its completely gone and normal color. On top of that whenever I die I have a black screen for about 2 minutes then the green for another 2 minutes. Whenever you zone the load takes at least another 2 - 3 minutes. Its just rediculous! The things I like about the game come down to the combat and the fact that its not a typical mmorpg. The combat system seems pretty cool but couldve been made a lot better. Honestly save your money and get something else. This game might get better in the future, but right now it sucks. This might not bother some people but in order to cancel your subscription you have to call them. Now this might not seem like a big deal... but think about how long you'll be on hold. Believe me when I say that free mmorpgs work and look better than this game. Take it from someone who took a risk and got burned... save your money!

- My first impressions

Ok let me first say that I've been playing FFXI for about a year now. I started getting sick of it and decided I wanted to try something new. I checked out the user ratings for this game and noticed a lot of people hating and loving the game. I just wanted something different from the warriors, mages, rangers, etc. I decided to take a risk and buy it even though I had a feeling it might suck. Damnit! This game is the worst game I ever played!!!! I'm not going to sit here and lie saying I've played it for a long time. I didn't... the game was waaaay too laggy. I could barely move. The map system is horrible, put a damn grid on that! I'll admit I havent REALLY played the game yet but it wouldnt give me a chance to. I fought one guy, tried to do a mission... but the lag just wouldnt let me move. The setup also constantly had errors. It was nothing major but it was still some BS you had to put up with. I wasnt expecting much from this game but thought I might be able to have some sort of fun for a month or two if anything. WRONG! If you want a game where you have to struggle to walk a straight line, screens freeze when you try to buy something off NPCs, really BAD graphics, and something that takes up waaay too many resources... then please buy this game. Seriously... my computer SHOULD be able to handle this game easily (and yes I know the min requirments). Since I have a month free I'll try it out a little more (if I can). If my opinions change I will definitely let you know. As of right now I'm very unhappy with this product and recommend people not to buy it.

Worst Online game ever

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 18
Date: April 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The people in warner bros, destroyed the story of the matrix completely.

The gameplay sucks. You have little control on your character when you fight.

The instances are all the same, and they are all in buildings that have the same architecture. Is not worted paying 49 dollars for this game, i reccomend you spent them and WOW

Dead. Boring.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 10, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game has good possibilities, but it is ruined by the lack of people on the two servers this game has. Everytime I logged in, all I saw was little to no one on. If people had been on, they were away from keyboard status or link dead. The actual system of the game is kinda cool, how you create your character, by selecting the powers and path you want to follow, but after the first few steps, it becomes confusing and you dont know where to go.... Pass on this one. If it becomes free, then pick it up.

Be ready to cancel your subscription

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 22 / 27
Date: May 31, 2005
Author: Amazon User

At $29.99 the game is a good deal for a couple weeks of fun. In a top-of-the-line computer, the Matrix really does comes to life. You need lot of cars on the street (they actually obey traffic lights), people walking around oblivious to the illusion around them. A martial art fighting is nicely choreographed and very believable. The production value of Matrix Online has got to be one of the highest in gaming history.

The game is all dressed up but has nowhere to go, unfortunately. All the wonderful shops, restuarants, and clubs are just there without a purpose. You can't do anything in them other than to sit. The designers had failed miserably in making use of the environment and storyline. Missions, beyond the initial few, are boring and purposeless. The gameplay starts to sag as you level up, because of game imbalance--combat becomes you overpowering the enemy or he overpowering you. And the constant running from point A to point B feels more like a chore when the surrounding environment no longer impresses you.

The Matrix Online is also very buggy. It has actually become buggier three months since launch. The last "live event" was nothing but trouble. The game was unstable. The servers were unstable. Missions were bugged. As though to crown it all, the cut scene depicting the death of Morpheus suffered from major clipping bugs.

If you a big Matrix fan then you're enjoy this game despite its flaw--for a short while anyway. Just don't expect to be playing long term. After the first month you will likely want to cancel.

Still a Beta

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 15
Date: April 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Okay so like a lot of other people on this listing and on others -- I was expecting and looking forward to a kick-ass game based on the Matrix Trilogy. I had a number of people tell me good and bad from both sides but I still ended up picking it up just because I was looking to get into a new game.

Now I don't have a monster machine but it is a p4 3ghz with a 64mb Radeon and a gig of memory -- even with that I had to have the resolution set fairly low and most details turned down just so it wouldn't be laggy when walking around the streets with no one on them....forget about any computer or human players -- lag central.

Okay so I can get past the lagging - when I first installed they already had a 100 meg patch to get so they are working on things. The part that ticked me off the most was a spawning issue I ran into near the very beginning of the game -- had a mission to go meet Niobe -- well the first time I got to the location -- no spawn...cancelled the mission and restarted -- again no spawn of Niobe...3rd time... there she is!

Landscape is pretty but as soon as you step inside a few buildings -- de ja vu -- I think they only created like 3 different building interiors and just replicated them throughout the entire "MegaCity".

Community..er lack there of. I guess this might be a bit buyist but I had the opportunity to play WoW for a few weeks and had just an excellent time interacting with other players just like myself. I don't think I even said hi to anyone inside The Matrix -- that or I couldn't tell if they were going to come after me or not since it looks like the game developers are randomly turning PVP on to incite a "war" or something like that.

Fighting was pretty cool and I did get to see a "bullet-time" effect once but definitely not worth it. Camera positioning sucks so that even if you are inside a building fighting against a wall the camera might accidentally fly outside and you have no idea happened. Computer players have no intelligence whatsoever -- couldn't even follow me through a door...and as they promised but haven't delivered, the streets are fairly devoid of "blue pills" still plugged in. Sure you see an occasional person sitting at a bar or something but nothing like you would expect from a city simulation -- I mean even Sim City has bands of people walking around, going to work, using mass transportation.

I hate to be so negative of this game and like I said --a bit buyist because I had played WoW prior. It does have great potential and for those hard core Matrix fans out there -- it will definitely wet your whistle but my "lower" system stats coupled with really lame spawning issues force me to turn my attention elsewhere.

Matrix Unbalanced

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 12
Date: December 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The setup of this game is promising: as a "redpill" newly awakened in the world that comes to The Matrix after the third movie, you are presented with a great deal of possibility. Options for character creation are varied enough that you seldom run across look-alikes, and the scenario that starts your trip into the game plays out just like the movies, complete with short "virtual training" sequences.

Unfortunately, from there the game begins to slide. A badly-released buggy game by Monolith and Sega, Warner Brothers quickly dumped the title and handed it to Sony Online (EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies). Patches are still a regular affair and seldom fix bugs. The transition ate my advance payment to WB for months of service (Sony says, "it should be there" but nonetheless would not let me continue playing until I'd provided them my credit card information, and simply began billing me at once). The patches often reset my firewall rules because they recompile the launcher.

Perhaps the largest problem is that the game is badly balanced: leveling up is best done taking "missions", most of which blur together after the first hour or two. You quickly stop reading the dialogue in your rush to get it over with. Missions are heavily stacked against you: unless you get someone higher-level to do all the work while you sit in the lobby, you will die. And take a skill penalty when you are revived. And take an XP penalty when you complete the mission. If you take too long, the mission times out. If the mission is buggy, you'll get most of the way through it before you have to abort. Even worse, at a certain path in the game, your character only gets missions in dangerous parts of town, where just getting from point A to point B is a lethal exercise.

This forces you to band together with other players, which can be the best and worst of gameplay. The saving grace to this game is that there are a lot of good people out there who will help you, bring you along, and give you the tools to get there. Even so, one of the biggest balance elements that needs to be addressed is that when you mission with higher-level characters, the mission scales to the highest level. In other words, you can't be a sidekick to the one person at the top and help them a la City of Heroes: chances are you won't get a single shot in, you just die. And the highest member then does all the work while waiting for you to make your way back to the building to rejoin the team.

It's not all negative, though, or I wouldn't be as generous with my rating. The textures and sounds in the game are really well done, the look is gorgeous, and the random "events" that take place are often interesting, and go on for a few days or a week. The music is a rework of the original movie score, with occasional hip flourishes of techno or heavy-guitar runs. The game has a high price of admission, but at least it pays off: 256MB of videocard and 2GB of RAM will actually improve the quality of the game. And because the world is partially instanced on your machine, lag can sometimes have a way of working itself out. Just the same, beware of those system requirements: I had a machine that met the minimum, but after one patch, the game booted me and refused to continue, saying my hardware was "unsupported".

With some some adjustment to lower the difficulty for the first 25 levels or so, Sony could have itself a decent MMORPG. It's also the only game I've played where style and fashion hold an important role--oddly enough, both male and female players place an emphasis on how you look and what you've got on. Sony, give us your kid gloves a bit longer through the journey, and this'll be a good game.

Some potential; but not ready for prime time

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 29 / 36
Date: May 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The movies were decent and had a compelling storyline. Nice that we have a game that picks up the pieces and moves forward.

Some negatives:

The Matrix Online does have potential; but it starts off in a bad way. The minimum specs outright lie to the consumer.

1. In my opinion, the only excuse to post untruths on minimum specs is to hoodwink fellow gamers into buying product. The game is near unplayable with the listed 512meg minimum, so, if you do not have a gig of RAM, it may be prudent to delay purchase.

2. The graphics are quite fuzzy and certainly not up to what most of us expect from today's marketplace.

3. Alpha and Beta issues bleed into the retail release, such as game balance and the game outright cheats at times. For instance, engaging same level NPC's who might attack with moves/powers/etc not available for another couple levels. Maxing out your avatar, only to be beaten in combat due to an NPC's ability to consistently cast higher rolls is disconcerting as well. Weapon effectiveness has barely any relation to real life.

4. Solo running can be pretty rough. After level 10 or so, 95% of the mission pulls begin in harsh territory where encounters with mobs several levels higher while you are in transit are quite likely.

5. bugs, bugs, bugs... At the moment, my favorite bug is combat freeze. During combat you get caught into a loop where nothing can be done from your end. The only hope is to die, reconstruct, and come back to again attempt to finish the mission. You say you just killed the last NPC? Then it's a total wash. Wasted time and no payoff. Incomplete missions because not all of the NPC's can be accounted for (found one on the roof of a building once, far from the area of engagement) are annoying. Bleed through from an avatar on another server use to make my day too.

6. For whatever reasons, the servers seemingly have a difficult time keeping up with a gamer's position. The servers think you are running into a wall, staunchion, building, etc.; but on your screen its more like an invisible wall. Hitting the up arrow a couple taps to roll forward sometimes updates your position to the servers.

7. The female avatars are often extraordinarily endowed. Oh wait, that's a good thing...I think?

On the positive side:

1. It's nice to be in a game without "magic" (although *hacking* is a kinda magic, I suppose.:)).

2. Never running out of ammunition is a plus for me.

3. Many of the clothing designs are quite nice. Definitely some talent went into it.

4. A lot of effort went into building diversifications, overpasses, streets, roads, etc..

5. The tie into AOL's messenger is very nice. You can exchange quips with friends while not being in the game.

6. No matter what game, if you are with friends, it's a good thing until everyone can agree what title to go to next.

Bottomline, The Matrix Online is abit of a change in pace. While running missions can get monotonous, "being" with friends makes all the difference for me and AOL's Instant Messenger brings more convenience towards that endeavor.

Hugs Around,

Odi

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