The Matrix Online Preview

Survival in the MMO market is not an easy job and knowing that Monolith has no prior experience with such games, not even with RPGs in general (except that they’ve published Valkyrie’s Septerra Core) what I see in TMO is a very well made entrance in the genre with some issues that if left unattended, will certainly prompt many to choose the blue pill over the red one.

I won’t spoil the story for you but it takes place after the events in Revolutions and you are one of many freshly acquired humans. Judging from the beta Sneak Preview and what we were allowed to see, the storyline would seem to be the stronget point of TMO by far (that and the license). During the course of the game you start by working for Zion which freed you in the first place. As you progress further the other two factions, Exiles and Machines, will start making offers. Depending on which path you decide to go down your reputation changes and you receive certain feats unique to each organization, though I wasn’t able to figure out what further bonuses you get.

You can of course do freelance work getting assignments from various agents in the matrix. A nice addition is the option to call them, wherever you are without needing to backtrack to their original place, stating a mission from your present location. There are two types of missions, story based and regular ones used mainly for loot and experience more than anything else. The latter consist of the standard “go there and kill this person” scenario, which I found quite boring the more I played them. There’s no doubt that missions driving the story forward will be the main attraction since they give you a real part in the evolving plot.

You can recruit any player you meet on the streets for a mission, where both of you team-up fighting side by side; or if you wish to get some training done, challenge someone to a duel. You won’t die in this case since the fight ends before your health reaches zero. You can’t suddenly attack a player and slaughter him because he has to accept the invitation first. Besides doing work there are various other activities players can do, such as raves in night clubs or large duel tournaments. I found the community in the game very co-operative and fun to play with.

The ability and discipline system of the game is an innovative idea. Whereas in all other RGPS you choose an initial path which you follow for the rest of the game unless you had another character, the Matrix lets you make or purchase any ability of any class you desire. But which abilities and tools are currently loaded into your memory slots determine what you’ll be doing in that particular session. There can be many combinations and at one point you can create items as a coder, then you can select another loadout and become a fighter with different set of abilities, aimed for different purposes. What this means it that you don’t need to create multiple characters to experience all the goods, or you won’t get stuck between class choices that you’ll regret having made later on. However not everyone can be equally strong because of the attributes you chose at the very beginning, such as strength, courage or vitality, which play a large role in how well a character uses his/her equipment and abilities. You can level any of these as you gain experience, getting progressively harder with each step. Some may not like this system but I found it interesting and logical since this is the Matrix after all, where you can load any skill you want before entering the world.

That’s when another good feature is used, the marketplace. A miniature version of eBay where you either search for posted items or list some yourself. It’s a great place and easily accessible from telephone booths (known as Hardlines used for various other things) placed at key locations. Items, equipment and tools can be also purchased or made by coders. Severely lacking variety in the game are the weapons such as pistols or machine guns, with only a few types available, a great disappointed to me.

Combat can be interesting and boring at the same time. You ether fight in locked mode, engaging a particular enemy in close combat, or blast him from a distance moving freely in the environment.

Gangs of thugs can be found in certain places, just standing by doing nothing which wasn’t very interesting, and attacking those is usually done for little extra experience, some loot and practice. The AI wasn’t anywhere in sight, even if I attacked a person from the group, none of the others reacted in any way, making it easy to annihilate all of them one by one.

If you happen to die in the matrix, you can reconstruct yourself, but each time you do it there’s a hit in your abilities and attributes. I was killed only twice so I can’t say how much you can degenerate, but I found that staying alive wasn’t a hard thing to manage. Along the attack selection during combat, there’s a flee button which gets measured in the same way against your opponent and if successful you can simply flee the scene.

Other features worth mentioning are the loading screen which is where you can select your ability and inventory loadout, a hardline to start the game from, look at cutscenes or visit the market place before you jack-in. The hotbar which I mentioned earlier is where you drag and drop tools, weapons, or abilities for quicker use, with ten layers for ten different configurations; the ability to enter almost any building you desire with a smooth transition; you can personalize your character with a range of different clothes, t-shirts, pants, hats, eyewear or you can walk around in your underpants; there’s an in-game newspaper outlining particular events; the interface can be arranged according with preference, is well organized and easily accessible. There are many types of emotes to choose from, you can even sit on the ground or on benches for faster health regeneration.

But that’s as far as environment interaction takes you. Everything is absolutely static except the pedestrian and road traffic. You can’t manipulate or destroy objects, and the world feels generally empty, especially for those with slower machines who would have to turn down the traffic density. The gameplay doesn’t take place in the real world, only in the Matrix where urban setting is the only theme. Despite the fact that there different sectors of the city with unique features, everything seemed stale and monotonous to me. Exploring new areas was far from exciting because all of it was pretty much predictable, with players, people and cars wandering aimlessly around city slums.

It’s a little risky releasing the game with these issues and with strong competitors out there, but if Monolith continues support through patches and updates matching what the players desire I can see the game being successful.

Free fire mode is where things get dull. You just pick a weapon, say a sub machine gun, target an enemy, and hit fire. Then you just sit and watch until one of you dies, flees or engages the other in close combat. The player feels much more passive in this mode than during hand to hand fighting which was already passive enough.

The former is a mix of real time and turn based gameplay. There are four basic attacks, fast, power, throw and block, as well as special moves you’ve purchased that can be set active from the hotbar at the top of the screen. After you select an attack, it gets weighed against the attack that your opponent has chosen, and depending on level, character strength, bonuses and other factors, a number is calculated. Whoever has the highest performs the attack, while the other receives it; then it goes on again. You never really know what the enemies can throw at you, and choosing the right move at the right time makes the difference. People having some of the martial arts abilities such as aikido or karate are in for some nice display since those sequences are very fun to watch.