This Matrix runs your PC
- — 19 May, 2003 10:27
Neo and company want to extract mankind from an elaborate computer construct in Matrix Reloaded, opening this week. The folks at Atari Corp., however, are confident scads of gamers will actually pay $109.95 to Enter the Matrix of their own free will.
Enter the Matrix is a third-person action game available now for the PC (the PC version sells for $99.95), Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s PlayStation 2, and Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s GameCube (non PC versions sell for $109.95). It's not just some cheesy tie-in to the movie, say its designers. It's an extension of it.
"The game runs parallel to the movie," says David Perry, president of Shiny Entertainment, the Atari (formerly Infogrames) studio that created the game. Perry and his teamed -- plugging the game last week at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) -- worked directly with Larry and Andy Wachowski, the masterminds behind the movie.
Brothers Got Game
Perry said he was astounded at the time and detail the brothers devoted to the game, while they were also preparing two highly anticipated movies and working on a series of short films called the Animatrix that tell the Matrix back story.
"I wanted them to shoot some footage for me," he says. "But they had more ideas than that."
More indeed. The two brothers scripted the game, directed it, created levels, coordinated stuntpeople and choreographers, and shot tons of additional footage for use in the game, Perry says.
Most movie-related games are lucky to get any top-notch footage from the movie, let alone an hour's worth of game-only stuff, he says. "Our footage isn't the stuff from the cutting room floor."
Matrix Synergy
Best of all, people who play the game and see the movie will get more out of both, Perry says.
"Things get revealed in the game," he says. Plotlines in Enter the Matrix link to the movie, and gamers will pick up on subtleties the average moviegoer will miss, he says.
For example, the movie features a huge car chase, and in the game you'll follow that chase during one segment, he says.
The game also integrates with the Animatrix shorts, he says. In Final Flight of the Osiris a character drops off a package in the Matrix, and retrieving that package is one of the missions in the game.
If all this sounds a bit over-the-top geeky, that's okay with Perry.
"This is for the Matrix people--they are pretty hard-core," he says. People who see the shorts, play the game, and see the movies will get a better understanding of what the Wachowski brothers are trying to create, he says.
"They want people to read into all of this as much as they want," he says. And people that get it, really get it. "It is like a club you have to get into," he says.
