The Matrix: Path of Neo (PlayStation 2, 2005)

As far as the movie to game thing goes, you actually do get to do almost everything you see in all three movies. Everything except for the infamous freeway chase. You do get to dodge bullets on the rooftop, do the lobby scene, fight agents after they bust open a door, burley brawl, fight agent smith one on one, the famous "château" scene, the training sequence against Morpheus, and MORE! There isn't really any additional footage like there was in "Enter The Matrix" but there are some extra pre-rendered movies, no "new: live footage. Compared to "Enter The Matrix," the gameplay is slightly similar but about 16x better. The fights actually look good this time and there is very little glitching. It also uses Havok physics so you can send someone flying in the air and every body part will bend accordingly, pretty cool (especially during the burly brawl.) Everything, and I mean, everything is destructible. Even a slight roll into the wall will make it shatter. This is overdone but very cool and true to the Matrix series. The other cool thing about this is that it actually tells you "way" more about the entire Matrix series, because you end up playing the scenes you missed in the movie. When Neo closes his eyes and then gets pounded with training and says, "I know kung fu," followed by a scene of him training for hours, you get to do what he did during that training and it is pretty interesting and well thought out. Other things such as when Morpheus dives out of the bathroom wall to save you, you get to see what happens after that.

I was surprised, at first, it was very tricky. The controls take a little getting used to. (Running across a wall while shooting at an enemy in slow motion takes a combination of 4+ buttons!) The shoulder buttons are used to shoot and you have to aim first and then you can shoot. The other two are used to open doors and enter "focus" mode, also known as bullet time.

The graphics are nothing impressive compared to certain games out today but for me, it was all good. I was actually impressed at times, the fact that the game ran so smoothly even with 30+ enemies on the screen at once. There were a couple slow-downs but nothing major.

I would say that there are fewer fighting moves than in "Enter The Matrix" but this is for the better, they actually all look good. There are also special instances where you will enter an area that is corrupted in the Matrix and "Tank" cannot save you, I don’t want to give too much away but it involves samurais.

The lighting is surprisingly very good. There are certain levels where there are streaks of light coming through windows and cracks and this is awesome when you have Neo standing in front of this light source with his dark outfit.
A final very important part of this game is the ability to choose what powers you want for the next level. Powers such as new moves, improved focus, and more! It is not as non-linear as it could be but it works. Another thing you have to play this game is for the ending. It is so absurd it is worth playing 3 or even 4 times over again just to see it.

Secrets, this game is full of them and you can only unlock cheat codes by beating it. There are different difficulty modes and each time you beat the game with a certain difficulty, you get two new ULTIMATE codes, such as God mode, all weapons, etc. I accidentally shut off my PS2 after having beat it and my file was corrupted. I