2003- The year of the Matrix. 2 movies, 1 animated DVD and one hell of a promising looking game, all due out by the end of the year and so naturally anticipation ratings are high for Shiny's third person action adventure.

One of the strangest concepts about the game involves the characters, you don't play as the stars Trinity, Neo or Morpheus instead you play as supporting characters Ghost and Niobe. It does mean that Enter the Matrix doesn't concentrate around the film, instead it takes short scenes featuring the two characters and expands on them to fill an entire game, like the pod racing scene in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.

Graphically Enter the Matrix isn't anything spectacular as one may hope, after all being such a special effect laden film you would expect the game to follow suit. Sadly judging on the backdrops, it doesn't look like it will blow you away, nevertheless despite the scenery looking bland the effects on what you can do to it is spectacular. It is fully interactive so you can rip it up with some nice extras and special effects such as the infamous 'bullet time', which looks nothing short of stunning. The amount of effort lavished upon the characters meanwhile shouldn't go unnoticed either, other than looking the part the actors have lent their voices and even movements to the game. It isn't just Ghost and Niobe either it includes the other stars such as Keanu Reeves and the rest of the crew.

It is this that makes the game seem that much more intriguing. The Wachowski Brothers the owners and creators of 'The Matrix' have been working along side Shiny in creating the game, the film's set designers designed the settings and backdrops and even the weapons were all tied in and designed by the film company. It is probably the closest you will ever get to a game being a film as it is almost a game made by a film company. The reason for this is that Enter The Matrix is a Matrix chapter in itself; indeed it does dip into 'Reloaded' but it follows a different story, you need to play and finish this game to get the full Matrix picture. So the level of input from the Wachowski Brothers is of course massive, aside from telling the story they also storyboarded and directed the cut scenes and in game movies with storyboards and such like.

But enough about why this game will be more than just a normal lifeless film to game conversion, how does it play? Well it isn't finished yet and Shiny made sure that the sections play tested are done, and they are done well. The majority of the game is taken up by a Kung Fu third person action game, in 'normal mode' there are hundreds of moves from back flipping, leg sweeping, Arm twisting, shooting, elbowing and so forth. It is rather staggering in a way and the manner in which you fight isn't a mere button stabbing affair, it all depends on who your fighting, what weapons you have, your position and how many people you are fighting, this way you see a new move every time! It is all very clever and when you switch to 'focus' mode you can now do such much more. By 'focusing' your character you can get out of sticky situations, you could run up walls for example, spin around and use a multiple variety of kicks to knock out a five-man SWAT team.

An interesting game play addition is the hacking mode, it works almost like a text adventure game, and there are no instructions so you have to work it out for yourself. As you improve your hacking skills you can download information, secrets, extra moves and fighting styles. The other unplayable sections of the game are the driving and flying segments of the game but this will undoubtedly be as spectacular as the third person action, it adds variety at least. To be frank (as in to the point not as some random guy called Frank) this game looks so incredibly promising, Shiny are a good developer and with the Wachowski Brothers onboard I wouldn't be surprised to see this game as one of the biggest this year… if not the biggest.