Last Updated: Mar 15th, 2006 - 17:20:44
Review: The Matrix Online Beta
By Nenjin Darkeyes
Apr 1, 2005, 17:55
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Title:
The Matrix Online
Developer:
Monolith Productions
Publisher:
Warner Brothers Interactive
Genre:
Sci-Fi MMORPG
Platform:
PC
ESRB Rating:
Pending
Release:
3/22/05
I remember when I first heard about The Matrix Online a few years ago, I was surprised by the utter lack of interest on the part of gamers. It seems that even as promising a premise as the Matrix can fall victim to over-saturation and hype. Suspicions were high that Monolith would produce yet another cheap movie knock-off title (like Enter the Matrix), and that it wouldn't be worth playing. Games that follow behind their successful motion picture counter-parts rarely end up being successful, and often are very simple, quick and dirty products designed to make a guarenteed buck.
Now, years later, amidst the crushing success of WoW, and the respectable performance of EQ2 and other titles, the MxO release is being accompanied by very little fan fare. So when I got in line for the final Mxo Beta Stress Test, I found it was exceedingly short.
If you're not familiar with my type of review, in the following text I'll go into a detailed break down of the various aspects of the game and how it's performing. If you'd like to skip all that, you can jump down to the bottom for a condensed version.
**Disclaimer- The presence of ** indicates that you should understand the preceding comment in this context "when the lag isn't kicking my ass".
Overview
Who is that hunk of Redpill?
I can say with some confidence, having played more than my fair share of MMOs, that MxO is
NOT
a steaming pile of digital poo**. Despite the fact Monolith has never made an MMO, or anything even remotely resembling one, it's obvious they've paid attention to the industry and how it works. MxO is going to be very familiar to any MMO gamer out there. Based in a 3rd person perspective, the UI setup and controls are what you see in any game today. The game uses WASD, FPS or Mouse Driven movement. You can pan scroll the camera with the mouse and zoom with the mouse wheel.
My first real impression of the game is that it is a blend of AO and CoH in terms of how content is approached, what content there is, and what you will spend the majority of your time doing. Missions are picked up from various contacts, which lead to semi-instanced mission areas. Mobs in the world consist of large groups of "exile" gangs littering the streets in 3s.
The city-scape, which thanks to CoH, is not new, stands out on it's own merits which I'll get to. I found the game play of MxO to be very close to City of Heroes**, in that it's very free formed and combines exploring with mission questing to create a quick tempo of game play**. Your life in the Matrix as a Red-pill will consist of skulking through trash littered alleys killing hordes of seemingly endless gangs, leaping across shadowy roof tops towards a mission objective, or just standing around in leather looking chic.
Over all in the week I've played in the stress test, I've come to have a pretty good time in the Matrix.** There are parts of this game that undeniably shine, followed by parts that beg to be changed. Would YOU enjoy the Matrix Online? It depends heavily on whether or not you liked the movie trilogy, because that is where the game draws all it's lore, content, and design from.
Theme
Taken moments before my computer imploded due to the stress of making the green stuff move
This game IS the Matrix. There isn't any other way to describe it. From the sounds used, to the visuals, every thematic aspect of this game oozes the feel of the Matrix. The cityscape towers above you cloaked in shadows. Huge skyscrapers stand next to decrepit tenements. Trash choked alleyways carve maze-like tunnels through the city. Everything is dark. Even during the day (there is a day/night timer of about 15 minutes**), it is never really light out. The sun never breaks through the cloud-covered sky. The city of the Matrix is simply dark, and forbidding, and lit by the strange, pervasive green tinge.
Whenever you enter the Matrix, whether logging on or jumping across the city using a hard-line, your surroundings are revealed as streaming lines of green computer code (ala Neo in the end of Matrix 1). People, buildings, cars, players, everything is covered in the flowing green script, and your speakers are filled with the weird feedback buzz of the Matrix. After a few moments** a shift occurs, and the code gradually fades away to reveal the construct that is the Matrix.
The combined visual and aural effects are impressive**. It definitely captures the strangeness, mystique, and 'feel' of the Matrix. And it doesn't stop there. The clothing you will garb yourself in ranges from the distinct 'cool' clothes of the Matrix, complete with sunglasses, to business suits and party dresses. There are Karate Gis, punk leather vests, military clothing...any conceivable clothing you might find someone wearing in the Matrix, is in game. Appearance is everything in the Matrix, as there is no true armor (will get to that), and Monolith ensured that every piece of clothing looked like it belonged in the Matrix.
So all in all, if you liked the look and style of the Matrix, you're going to love the job Monolith has done. Warner Brothers gave them full use of the property rights, and Monolith did not disappoint.
Story
A brief, brief synopsis. The game picks up after the end of the 3rd movie. Neo is gone, and the Machines have formed a sort of 'truce' with Zion, where they will no longer actively persecute people trying to wake up from the Matrix. This has led to a sort of 'cold war' time in the Matrix. The Merovingian, the 3rd element, is actively pursuing his own interests, further ramping up the tension. No one is sure what anyone is planning, and all factions are on the look out for new members. In addition to the big 3, there are a multitude of other exiles (rogue programs seeking sanctuary in the matrix), who have formed their own organizations, and are jealously gobbling up power and turf. And this is where the player enters, a newly awakened Redpill that will have to choose who they want to work for.
The foreboding city-scape of the Mega City
As for the developing story...it's impossible for me to say how "true" the to Matrix it is. Monolith made heavy use of place holder missions during the Stress Test, and a large number of the quests weren't in. None of the developing story of the Matrix was revealed in these quests, and 90% amounted to "go kill X cause I don't like them, go steal me code Y. Go pick up blue pill K". The missions however did do a fairly good job of showing you some of the dynamics of what life is like after the end of the War**. Zion, the Merovingian, and the Machines are constantly butting heads over new red pills, exotic pieces of code, and personal vendettas.
Sound
Again, 100% genuine Matrix sounds and music ripped straight from the movies. Voices from the movies such as Lawrence Fishburne and others are present in limited form. When not hitting you with well known Matrix tracks, the developers went with a range of throbbing techno beats (usually in the clubs), a little death metal (fights), and some tracks that put me strongly, strongly in mind of the intros in CoH. A few fast paced combat tracks also are added to the mix. I found the music in the Matrix, the original music, to be pretty decent**. None of it really grabbed me, but it displays competence, and doesn't rip you out of game. The sound FX could use a little more work in my opinion. While weapons fire and HTH combat sound pretty good (the HTH combat sounds are also pulled straight from the movie), some of the program sounds(like magic) sound a little too much like arcade upright sounds, and a few of them glitch still.
Graphics
My system specs:
1.9 AMD Athlon 2600+
512 mb PC3200 RAM
GeForce FX5900XT 128meg
Soundblaster Audigy 2
To get the game to play halfway decently, I had to turn the settings down to the lowest possible, disable all environment shadows and extras, and run it 800x600. With my specs, I
barely
meet minimum requirements.
So I can't really tell you what the high end graphics really look like, because I've never seen them. What I see from the bottom end is that the graphics are fairly decent**. The environments are literally choked with objects and textures**, and compared to CoH, I would have to say MxO has created the richer city-scape**. But unfortunately, everything looks plain and grainy in 800x600 with nothing on, so the game ends up looking fairly simple for me. Overall, I would say MxO sits somewhere under WoW, about where Final Fantasy is. You can compare my SS with ones Monolith put on their website.
Stealing data from the man!
Gameplay
The key points-
Death and Leveling
- Experience starts out being fairly easy to acquire. At the end of a week or so of playing, I'm Lvl 12 now. Around level 8, the experience starts to slow as the mobs your level become increasingly more threatening, and you start diverting back to lower level mobs you can slay in the dozens. Sometimes it is more efficient to kill a high ranked lower level mob than it is to try and kill a low ranked high level mob. Each mob, in addition to it's level, has one of the 3 ranks, usually corresponding to their status in whatever gang they are part of. So a level 8, 3 ranked mob might give me 100 xp at level 12, while a level 12 rank 1 mob might only give me 80. Missions can also give you xp, in varying amounts depending on the difficulty you choose for the mission, and between the two you can quickly gain decent experience, even solo.
Death has no sting in the Matrix. You never lose xp when you die. The only items you lose are "code bits (crafting materials)" and unloaded skill programs (abilities you have bought from the vendor but not uploaded). And trust me, death having no sting in the Matrix is a good thing, because of the Combat system.
Combat
- Combat is one of the parts where MxO shines. First there are two types of combat, free aimed and Interlock. With free aim, you character may fire a weapon at a target which they have locked on to. The game fires your weapon for you on a recycling timer. This is an effective method of combat, if you choose to specialize in it and have good weapons.
That's right...look right down the barrel....
The second type is Interlock. Interlock is the signatory wire-fu combat of the Matrix. This is one of the major features of the game, and it doesn't disappoint. Monolith achieved the effect by creating a large library of choreographed combat interactions. When 2 characters move into Interlock, the system dictates their characters movement's for them. A set of 5 buttons come up underneath your hot bar. Blue, or quick strike, will set you character to a stance that emphasizes speed and multiple hits. Red, medium strike, is a slower but more damage series of heavy blows. Green, throw, does small amounts of damage, but can strip opponents of weapons and/or combat advantages. Yellow, Defense, seeks only to avoid damage and restores 'mana' to the defender while it's active. The last is a flee Interlock button.
Me using one of my many abilities
Blue, red, and green attacks work on a rock-paper-scissors premise. Blue trumps red, red trumps green, green trumps blue. So when the two characters select their attack, the Interlock system compares the attacks, then adds in the combat bonuses, specializations, and levels of the combatants, and rolls a die. The resulting total is the winner of that "round", and the Interlock system generates an appropriate combat graphic (which looks damn cool**). Then into the mix you throw special attacks which capitalize on dazed or stunned states, and that can have dramatic impacts on the fight. Fists or guns can be taken into Interlock, resulting in spectacular displays of dodging, and smiting.** Occasionally the game will throw in a slow down moment or camera spin.
Round timers are quick, only a few seconds, which makes Interlock combat very fast**, where split second decisions are important, as well as watching what your opponent is doing. The Interlock system is almost completely working, with only a few bugs appearing here and there that sometimes result in a "dead round" where neither combatants do anything. But this is often more the result of multiple people trying to engage one target in Interlock. Combat in the Matrix is fun and quick, and I'm still seeing moves and combinations that I haven't seen previously. Against an opponent of equal skill, fights are determined by careful selection of tactics and use of abilities. Were you to engage and just walk away, your chances of winning a fight like that against an equal level opponent are probably 10%.
Character Customization
MxO offers a wide range of facial and feature adjustments to get the look you want for your character to be just right. Along with that come a large selection of clothing (which isn't in the Beta build) to further customize your look. If you've ever fantasized about having a tall pink mohawk, a long shiny black long coat with a business suit underneath, brudda, welcome to MxO. Be ready to join thousands of your comrades as you skulk moodily in alleyways, wearing sunglasses in the dark and looking impossible hip.
She smells nice....
Character Development
This is the other area where I think the Matrix shows it's best side. Character development consists of acquiring new "ability code" for your character. These codes are placed in a large branching tree of abilities, which are divided into families. Each program or ability code you have loaded takes up a piece of your "memory". As you gain levels you memory capacity increases allowing you to equip more skills. You start like everyone else in the first family of abilities, "Awakened". As you acquire more ability codes you get access to different branches of the tree, like Operative, Coder, and Hacker. These further branch out into highly specialized sets of skills (that basically create classes like rogue, wizard, cleric, crafter ect..).
The shape of the Class Tree
There is nothing particularly new about that part of their design, but the unique part comes in how you can arrange your skills. Because you have to fulfill prerequisites to acquire new skills, you build your way along the class tree. You never have to dedicate to something though. You can simply unload abilities and reload others, going from a "soldier" to a "hacker" in a few minutes.
All your unused code is stored in the "loading area". This is where you end up when you die, or you can access it from hundreds of "hard-lines" in the city. Here you can change the skill make up that you want to take into the Matrix with you. You can combine parts of different class trees to give yourself different combinations of abilities (provide you have the memory capacity). The system looks as if it could provide hours, upon hours of replay value. And unlike many games, you don't need 30 toons to enjoy all aspects of the class design, as one character can potentially have any combination of abilities in the game.
Another screen in the loading area
Grouping
- I have played solo almost the entire time in the Matrix. The few times I did group, I was so crushed by lag I was practically useless. Grouping and the Interlock system prove to be a little wonky right now, as you will be "Unable to enter combat for unexplained reasons", while someone else tries to engage your target in close combat. I'm sure grouping has it's high points, I'm just not in a position to appreciate them at this point. What group XP I earned with 3 people 2 levels above me, and mobs 2 levels above me, was dismal. This was before a patch addressing xp values, though.
Content
- Ah, the final fig leaf. Well, big surprise, this is where I again start griping in earnest. MxO appears content light to me right now. The city-scape is just frickin' huge, there is no denying that. Every building can be entered. EVERY BUILDING. It's crazy when you stop to think about it, about the size and detail involved. But sadly, there's not much in those buildings when they are not the site of a mission. After a few dozen hours of running or jumping across the city(which is 3x the fun of CoH building jumping in my opinion), you quickly begin to learn to love the multitude of "hard-lines" which you use to teleport around the Mega City, and the subway system. Every NPC I've met that you can talk to repeats the same tired introductory newbie phrases you've heard for the last 10 levels. Virtually all vendors in a massive radius carry the same load out of weapons, items, clothing, and abilities codes.
Certain sections of the city are "restricted" to certain level ranges. If you enter these areas, you will be warned, and a little meter will appear on your screen. While in the restricted area, should you stay still for too long, the meter will increase. When it hits red, an agent will come find you. Inside areas which are restricted (which is basically the areas for levels 10+), there are Access Nodes that you can trigger which will give you permission to be in that area. Or you can just wait til you're the right level.
There are clubs where contacts hang out waiting to give out missions, and players can meet each other, yet many of these are nearly identical to each other, and only a few currently contain contacts. Or even NPCs that you can talk to.
If you think it looks cool now, you should see it in action**
"Collectors" scattered around the city trade items to players for markers or tags taken from dead exiles. Basically a bunch of glorified orc pawn quests. As mentioned before, gangs litter the streets in countless numbers, all of them inexplicably there and hostile to you. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time, but after you've seen your Nth "Chopper Skullcracker" or "Legion Fanatic", you just don't give a shit anymore. And believe me, you will need exponents to detail the number of gangs present in the Mega City. The hard part is trying to figure out why there are even supposedly different from one another.
So far, I've founded 2 dungeons with named bosses at the ends of them. After crawling down 5 unimaginative, repetitive floors (both dungeons were carbon copies of each other) to the boss, I can safely say I never want to be that bored again in my life. Even AO had better dungeons with more imagination than this.
Missions are the other source of content in MxO. You can get these from one of the 3 major organizations, by calling them on your cell phone. Or you can get missions from local exiles who need work done. You have a reputation with each of the 3 major factions, and what missions you choose to do will determine how the story will reveal itself to you. Sometimes the exile missions affect your reputation, sometimes they stand completely on their own.
So far, every mission goes the same way. Get assignment. Go to random building in city. Enter building, find elevator. Take elevator to mission floor, start mission. From the point where you see the mission marker on, that section of the building is instanced for you and anyone in your group.
Once you start the mission, there will be various places in the rooms to search for goodies, or hack people's computers. There are sometimes traps, and security systems that you can disarm with the right skills. You'll hunt down 2 to 3 NPCs in the area( on easy), do whatever it is you do, and move on your way. Once you've completed the mission, you'll be warned to leave the area. If you don't, after a few minutes an agent will appear, and believe me, you don't want that to happen. One shot from an agent's gun, or one punch, and you're going back to the loading area. In the end, without a firm story to back up the missions, and the lack of variance in environment and setting, missions can be a bore. Sure, you can fight off hordes of NPCs on a hard setting mission, but it's too thin to really be entertaining.
Itemization
- I'm not impressed with the Matrix's itemization. The only thing that stands out is the remarkable visual variety of clothing. Because there is no real armor, clothing is imbued with resistant qualities (like Physical Resistance 1%). This kind of clothing is only dropped by mobs at random or traded for from collectors, or crafted. The guns you can purchase have a rigid framework of design that doesn't have much depth. Range, Damage, Modifiers. All shotguns give +5 Ranged Tactics, shoot 16 meters. All assault rifles have -5 Ranged Tactics, shoot 22meters. So far I've encountered about 8 different types of guns, with 3 different variants of each type. Weapons are rigidly restricted by level in 5s, and there is not a significant amount of difference between many of them. Guns can have special properties imbued in them too, either by crafters or finding them as random dropped weapons. Some named bosses will carry special hand designed equipment. To me, itemization in the Matrix seems to be only 1/2 way there right now. Weapons need more variance and depth in general, and the fact that 50% of the vendors in game sell the same 5 crappy starting weapons does not help this impression at all.
Performance
*cracks fingers*
If you have noticed all the **, you've probably guessed this game has some issues. The first day I started the Beta, I was pretty sure the game was going to be unplayable for me. I literally sat in the spot I started the game at for 5 minutes while everything around me jerked, and choked, and stalled. Even after turning settings down, moving 10 feet took a good minute or more.
I came back the second day ready to write the game off, but tried again, after a patch had released relating to server stability and client performance. It wasn't much better, but it played, albeit slowly and inconsistently. My hard drive was working over time, struggling to keep up. And yet, I still made level 5 after about 6 hours of playing, to give you an idea of how hard it was to cope with.
Sometimes, you just have to dance, dance, DANCE!
Performance steadily improved with each patch released. On my end I did some tinkering and found something in my own comp that was causing me problems. So after 3 patches, and fixing my own problems, the game ran decently**. I need to qualify this. When you first log in and the green stuff is everywhere, it's murder on your PC. Lag is just unavoidable during that period. Once that is over with, the game starts loading textures and detail objects around you, and after a minute or so things are playable (but still sorta jerky). The problems and lag seem to center around texture loading. The lag is the worst when you run through the city, or leap great distances. The game will often still be loading up textures while I am moving, and texture popping is not at all uncommon. This has on more than one occasion landed me in the middle of a bunch of bad guys, and resulted in me dying before I can do anything. So the catch to performance is, once you have been in a small area for a while, and there aren't 30 people around you, the lag drastically decreases and the game almost runs smooth. So in places like small enclosed camp spots and mission areas, the game runs pretty smoothly, but the instant you leave those areas or start moving a sizeable distance, the lag reasserts itself. It’s like the game does a very poor job of loading and maintaining it’s seamless world design.
In a few hours of playing (and especially when I try and go the 'loading area') a few disconnects will occur. However these are not a terminal problem for the game, but the occasional annoyance. Over all, the performance of the game is a conundrum to me. I can't decide if it's my PC specs that need improving, or their code, because the game runs both smooth and crappy depending on how much texture loading you need to do.
Part of me has to wonder. If the Matrix was real...what the hell would happen to your brain on the other side if you suddenly went link dead when trying to jack out? I half expected my toon to come back with a deformed head the first time my connection timed out.
Any guesses on who those are directed at?
Synopsis and Ratings
Out of 10.
Theme-8
If you like the Matrix, you should really check this out. I loved the first movie, and hated the rest, and for me it's cool to see the Matrix represented in a way I always thought it should have been.
Story-6
Ok, so now that I get how the interplay of factions works, can you please give me a story arc that isn't summarized in 2 sentences?
Sound-7
It's good, and there are some catchy pieces in there. Of course, I dig techno. A couple bleh sound effects keep this score down.
Graphics-7
At my level of settings, they look a little dated. And there may be a few problems with popping, and the backs of people's head's missing...and some other stuff, but you can't help but appreciate the visual impact of the game.
Gameplay-6
Combat and Character development, primo! Content and Itemization, kaka! The tell tale marks of way too much time spent revising systems instead of thinking about what is going to keep people playing without getting bored.
Performance-5
Redeemed only because of the sharp improvement I've seen over the last week. They are trying, that's for sure. But there was more than enough lag to drive off even the most stalwart gamer. I'm kinda surprised I hung out this long. If the lag issues and performance keep improving, this could be well on it's way to a more solid rating.
Total: 6.5/10
Final Thoughts
I'm probably going to get ridiculed for saying this, but I think MxO has the potential to be a good game worth playing, and not just be a cash whore for Warner Brothers and the Wachowski Brothers (or something to pay their legal fees). Yes, it's obvious Monolith has had problems getting the game working, and the signs are there of unbalanced development that comes from being new at making an MMO. I can't count the number of typos, contradictions, dead links, convoluted FAQs, and basic mistakes that this harried developer has put forth. Hell, they are even having problems getting people registered for the "big sneak preview" of the release client. Yes, the game has latency issue which will drive you crazy and make you want to “wire-fu” kick the devs in the face.
But the core of what they created is strong, and has the potential to be built upon. Additionally, many things that would have improved my opinion of the game have intentionally been withheld for the release product. This was only a 3 week stress test after all. If Monolith keeps on improving the game, and listens to their players when they express discontent at the shallowness of some of the content, then I think MxO might have a bright (metaphorically of course) and entertaining future. That is, if they make it passed the initial rocky release period. If they don’t get their latency problems solved pronto, MxO is going to serve as an abject lesson on how multi-million dollar properties can become multi-million dollar flops.
Bottom line: If you like the Matrix, the look, the ideas, you should check this game out. If you don't have the patience for yet another MMO to work it's way up to the status of being a "great game", then I suggest you pass this one by, because it could take a while. For that want to play, be prepared for some rough incidences of game play. And for the love of all that is holy, do not visit their forums. I don't think they even moderate them.
RAGEBRINGER SCORE
= 3 out of 5 daggers.
Only because I look so damn good in a pair of dark sunglasses.
Thanks for reading.
Justin "Nenjin" Wheeler
Staff Writer
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