******************************************************************************* NOTICE: THIS FAQ IS DISCONTINUED (29th March 2004) I will not be replying any more emails regarding this game. Sorry. ******************************************************************************* ------------------------------- Enter The Matrix [PC] Gameplay & Storyline FAQ Version 0.6 Copyright(c) 2003 Yeo Kian Bung ------------------------------- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This FAQ is dedicated to all the people who have yet to be unplugged from The Matrix. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -[Copyright Information]- This FAQ is the intellectual property of Yeo Kian Bung. No part of it may be reproduced in any form for any profitable means, unless you have the written consent of the author and even so, this FAQ must be reproduced as a whole, without any part of it removed, no matter how inappropriate or irrelevant it may be for its purpose. This FAQ may only be reproduced without the written consent of the author for non-profitable and non-commercial means, as long as the author is credited for his work and no act of plagarism is commited. If any form of copyright violation upon this FAQ is detected and/or reported, the author shall follow up with a notice demanding the removal of the material. Failure to comply will establish liability for civil action and may give rise to criminal prosecution. All registered trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders. -[ Author Info ]- Name: Yeo Kian Bung Net Alias: Grim Shadow Favoured Character: Ghost (Should have been Neo...) E-Mail Address: kianbung@hotmail.com (also MSN) Forum Address: http://pub218.ezboard.com/bmatrixthegathering -----------------------------------NOTICE-------------------------------------- By the way, for all of you who add me to your MSN list, please tell me that you added me because it is written in the FAQ, because I might assume that you're someone I know and keep asking who are you. (I'm very very presistent) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ Author's Notice ]- Whoa, not bad. I've only posted this FAQ for a day and I've already got two people emailing me about some problems. That's cool. Shows me how ETM is still quite a popular game. I've added a few extra stuff to boost the version to 0.6, but that's not all. Oh, yeah... Keep the emails coming, fellow Matrix players! -[ Document Spacing Check ]- 0101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010 XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX 1010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101 OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO If the four lines above line up perfectly, then you'll have no problem reading the rest of the FAQ (as long as you're not illiterate). If it is all messed up (one line long, one line short) or it ends up being in more than four lines, then you have to change your font to a fixed width font and set your character width to 79. If the text still looks like crap, then I recommend that you go see an eye doctor. :P -[ E-Mail Policy ]- Please put the subject as 'ETM PC FAQ'. (caps without the quotes) Please send me: 1. Corrections 2. New stuff I haven't found 3. Constructive Criticism 4. Interesting Stuff I haven't mentioned 5. Your views about The Matrix 6. Matrix Trivia 7. Ideas on how to free myself from The Matrix :P Please DON'T send me: 1. Spam 2. Unreadable email 3. Viruses 4. Hate Mail 5. Stuff I already know about (thanks anyway) 6. Questions I have already have answers to 7. Chain emails 8. Emails claiming you're The One (coz you're not) 9. Emails with wierd subjects -[CONTENTS]- Section 01 - Introduction 01.01 - Version History 01.02 - FAQ Usage Guide 01.03 - Game Review Section 02 - Getting Started 02.01 - System Requirements 02.02 - To-Do Section Section 03 - The Construct 03.01 - Controls 03.02 - Martial Arts Training 03.03 - Focus / Bullet-Time 03.04 - Gunplay 03.05 - Driving / Piloting 03.06 - Survival Tips 03.07 - Hack The Matrix Section 04 - Walkthroughs 04.01 - Level Walkthroughs (Coming Soon) 04.02 - Hacking Walkthrough(Coming Soon) 04.03 - Boss Guide Section 05 - Zion Database (Spoiler Alert) 05.01 - What is The Matrix? 05.02 - History of The Matrix 05.03 - Blur Factor 05.04 - Plot Summary 05.05 - Character Information (CoMinG sOOn) Section 06 - The Extended Matrix 06.01 - The Matrix is Real 06.02 - Red or Blue? Section 07 - Closing Words 07.01 - Credits 07.02 - Contributor Section 07.03 - Coming Soon -[ Section 01 | Introduction ]- Incredible kung fu, fast and furious gunplay, (not so) great driving missions, and intriguing never seen before footage following a side story for the second instalment of The Matrix would-be trilogy, The Matrix: Reloaded. Enter The Matrix is probably the most highly anticipated game for Matrix fans throughout the world since Max Payne. And for a very good reason, too. The Wachowski Brothers did an excellent job writing the story of The Matrix, capturing the minds of people around the world with a movie that features a blend of spectacular martial arts, adrenalin pumping gunfights, high-flying (literally) stunts and a mind-bending sci-fi storyline. On 15th May 2003, our dreams are realised. Both The Matrix: Reloaded and Enter The Matrix were released on that day, freeing the minds of people around the world from their three/four year wait. Heck, I myself have been waiting for a game based on The Matrix ever since 2000, when I first saw the movie. I've even emailed to a few magazines, asking if there were rumours of such a game. I got a few replies saying yes, but I've waited for so long and almost gave up hope. The game was a blast (mostly), but a few major errors in development halted it from achieving its ultimate potential. -[ 01.01 | Version History ]- 13/06/2003 Version 0.5 - Started writing the first version of this FAQ. 13/07/2003 Version 0.6 - Added The Extended Matrix section -[ 01.02 | FAQ Usage Guide ]- This FAQ is mainly focused on *gameplay and storyline explaination, instead of walking you through the game step by step. Sure, there will be a level-by-level walkthrough included, but I will not dive too deep into the rabbit hole. The game in normal difficulty, by average gaming standards, is really a little too easy for my liking. Thus, I doubt that you'll have much of a problem with beating the game, just as I did. The main problem people will be facing is grasping the storyline. Every twist and turn will be hard to track down, and if you're not a programmer/hacker, you'll really have difficulty grasping the complicated storyline and the hacker jargon. So please, please, don't send me an email telling me that my walkthrough is not detailed enough or just plain sucks, I don't care. There are plenty of good walkthroughs out there, and you can use those instead. The main purpose of this FAQ is to explain the storyline and hopefully improve your gameplay experience as much as possible. *Notice: By gameplay, I mean to train you in fighting and gunplay (and maybe a little of driving), not guide you through the actual flow of the game. -[ 01.03 | Game Review ]- GRAPHICS - 8.5 Great graphics, held back by some minor glitches. The lighting is beautiful, though not as breathtaking as some other games (ie. Splinter Cell), the character textures are realistic, and character movements are fluid and realistic. As with most other games, this one suffers from the usual clipping stuff, so I won't go in-depth with that issue, but the things I really have to complain about are the environments. Both the environment design and texturing are a crippling hit on the realism scale. While the character design and texturing are ultra-realistic due to 3D image capture (as read in magazines), the environments and objects probably didn't go through this procedure as well. Some rooms and hallways have this 'empty' feeling to it, for some reason, and some of the object and environment textures are just plain disgusting. Take a look at the wheels on Niobe's car and you'll see what I mean. That leads to another problem: Aren't wheels supposed to be round?? The car wheels looks more like a box to me, even at the highest detail levels. Overall though, the detail in graphics are pretty good in comparison with most other games, if you don't bring up the 'box-like wheel issue'. SOUND - 10 One word - Excelsior! Great sound effects backed-up by some excellent music contribute to the well-being of this game. Cool techno/rock music pops up whenever you get into a sticky situation (ie. boss fights), adding more excitement to the already adrenalin-pumping gameplay. Hand to hand combat features lots of different 'smack' sounds, which is one of the main reasons kung fu fights in The Matrix seems cooler than everywhere else. Focus also slows down the sounds, adding to the 'cool factor', especially when bullets sound like they are literally whizzing past your ears. GAMEPLAY - 8 Fast and furious gunplay, non-stop kung fu fights, impossible stunts and best of all: bullet time. Need I say more? Well, I guess I have to. The few points above would have gotten it a perfect 10 if it hadn't for a major drag in gameplay: The driving missions are plain stupid. The programmers somehow messed up in Niobe's AI or something, which caused her to frequently drive into walls for no reason at all. This is understandable if the car had been rammed or blocked by some debris, but Niobe seems to enjoy driving into walls even when there's no obstruction. This gets extremely frustrating especially in some missions where you're being chased and gunned down. If you're driving as Niobe instead, you would notice that the car physics are really messed up. Unfortunately, this issue has frustrated more gamers than one could imagine, giving it a heavy penalty to the fun factor. STORY - 10 Here, reviewers are met with a choice. They'll either give it a perfect ten or a straight zero. I, for one chose the high score. If you're a fan of The Matrix, you'll see what I mean. The fact that the game's story is an alternate storyline to The Matrix: Reloaded is just intriguing, where it fills the player in on what happens to Niobe and Ghost when the camera in Reloaded is busy with Neo. Plus, it also contains a few major plot points that really adds the depth to the already mind-bending storyline of The Matrix. All this has a major pitfall, though. You'll have to watch The Matrix, its sequel and The Animatrix to actually understand what's going on, or else you'll think the Warchowski Bros. are just flinging crap at you. CONTROLS - 7.5 Time and again the gaming community has protested against this, but the producers still hasn't heeded our warning. Cross-platform is bad. It has always been and will always be bad. The controls almost always get messed up in the process of cross-platforming. Sorry Shiny, you should have reprogrammed the whole thing for the PC. What's up with the auto aiming, anyway? Shiny has obviously forgotten that the PC has a hardware specifically made for aiming: The mouse. It really takes the fun out of things. Mouselook is also limited, meaning you can't really see the Agent you just thrown off a ledge unless you jump off with him. And what's this? You can only move sideways in first person mode??!! Worst of all, mouse aiming is really unresponsive in sniper mode. Looks like you really screwed up this time, Shiny. OVERALL - 8 / 10 This is a fine example of a game that could have been a huge success but didn't because of cross-platforming and some carelessness in the producer's part. It's still a fine game, though there are some major flaws, Matrix fans should be able to tolerate them. There are still lots of fun in it, though I wouldn't recommend it to non-Matrix fans. A good choice for those who like Max Payne and Tekken. Though a definite must-buy for all you Matrix fans out there, I would recommend the others to rent first, then buy if you like it. PROS - It's The Matrix - Beautiful character design - Great music and sound effects - Great side-story to The Matrix: Reloaded - Kung Fu is fun - Guns, lots of guns CONS - Bad driving AI - Some textures are crap - Cross Platforming - Controls are frustrating - Story doesn't make sense to non-Matrix watchers - Source of insomnia - Where's Neo? -[ Section 02 | Getting Started ]- There are a few stuff here that PC users really have to do before jacking in to maximise their gameplay experience. As for you console users, you should probably skip this whole section. But if you really insist on reading this section... It's your call. -[ 02.01 | System Requirements ]- Here's my system specifications, for your reference: Operating System: Windows XP Processor: AMD Duron 945MHz Memory: 512MB RAM CD-ROM Drive: 48x Speed Graphics Card: nVidia GeForce 4 MX 440 128MB DDR-RAM Sound Card: Creative SoundBlaster Live! Value Here's the official *minimum* system requirements for ETM: Operating System: Windows 98SE/Me/2000/XP Processor: Intel Pentium III 800MHz / AMD Duron 800MHz Memory: 128MB of RAM Hard Disk Space: 4.3GB CD-ROM Drive: 4x Speed Graphics Card: nVidia GeForce 256 32MB / ATI Radeon 8500 Sound Card: Windows Compatible Sound Card DirectX: DirectX Version 9 or higher A word of advice: *NEVER* trust official system requirements completely. They are usually have a huge margin of error as to make sure everyone with those specs can run the game. Personally, I recommend having RAM, lots of RAM. This game is a RAM-leech. It consumes RAM faster than Microsoft implants bugs in their software. Once, I had a Pentium II 392MHz (which I overclocked myself) which could run most of the latest games with no problem in medium to high settings because it had 768MB of RAM. But soon, the situation will call for stuff other than RAM. When the time comes, I highly recommend that you upgrade your graphics card. Graphic cards are the cheapest yet the most effective solution to most of lag issues. Even so,computers vary greatly in both hardware and software configurations, and thus we can never be sure if things will work out the ways envisioned. A Pentium II with a great graphics card might be able to run a game without much lag, while a state of the art Pentium 4 with a messed up registry or software config may suffer from tremendous lag or even might be unable to run the game at all. "Hume teaches us that no matter how many times you drop a stone and it falls to the floor, you will never know what will happen the next time you drop it. It might fall to the floor, but then again, it might float to the ceiling. Past experience can never prove the future." -Ghost, Enter The Matrix -[ 02.02 | To-Do Section ]- These are a few things that I highly recommend that you carry out before you enter The Matrix to significantly improve your gaming experience, or at times enable the game to run at a previously 'incompatible' PC. ~ 1. EAX Bug Tweak ~ Priority: 10/10 - Essential (Do it, do it now!) Difficulty: 3/10 - Beginner This is the biggest fluke Shiny has managed to come up with in the process of making the game 'more enjoyable'. Unfortunately, gamers would prefer having a lagless game than one with a few extra (and mostly unnoticable) sound effects. Yup, you guessed it, Shiny has somehow screwed up the EAX implementation in the game and caused it to produce tremendous lag when this 'extra feature' is enabled. Do not doubt the power of this bug, it can turn a virtually lagless game into a game that seems to be running with 'hardware-enabled bullet-time' (ie. lag, lots of lag). This is probably the reason most gamers have been unable to run the game with satisfactory frame-rates. Fortunately, the friendly contributors in the GameFAQs forum have generously posted a solution to this infernal glitch. Just follow these (hopefully) easy- to-follow steps and soon you'll be having a good time dodging bullets: 01. Press Start on the taskbar, then on the Run button 02. Type in ' dxdiag ' (without the quotes) and press the OK button 03. Wait for the DirectX Diagnostic Tool window to pop up 04. Click on the 'Sound' tab (should be between Display and Music tabs) 05. Pull down the 'Hardware Acceleration Level' slider one notch 06. Press the 'Exit' button 07. If it asks for confirmation, press 'Yes' or 'OK' 08. Run the game 09. Press the Options button, the on the Audio button 10. Go to the 'Output Options' and turn EAX off if it's enabled 11. That's it. End of story *Notice: I would like to thank whoever first contributed this tweak in GameFAQs forum. You have helped more people than you can imagine. If you are reading this FAQ now, I would like to have the honour of putting your name here and in the credits section. Please email me as soon as inhumanly possible if you wish to be recognised. (See 'Author Info' section for my email address) ~ 2. Anti-Aliasing Configuration ~ Priority: Unknown (Can someone help?) Difficulty: 1/10 - No-Brainer I have also read somewhere in the GameFAQs forum that Shiny has also screwed up with the Anti-Aliasing, and for some reason, the game lags more when Anti- Aliasing is turned off. How ironic, considering the fact that most people believe that disabling Anti-Aliasing is the key to a lagless game. Unfortunately, I have no idea whether this is true or not. I have Anti-Aliasing enabled all the time (thanks to my GeForce 4), and I see no difference in the performance even when it is disabled. Still, I would like to see some comments and feedback on this little question. Please? Anyone? Anyway, I'll still help you on this little problem: 01. Start the game 02. In the pre-game configuration screen, just move the Anti-Aliasing slider up a notch or two (if you're blessed with a good graphics card, just move it up all the way) 03. There is no step 3 *Notice: Can anyone please confirm this? I appreciate all forms of assistance. ~ 3. Patch ~ Priority: 4/5 - Low Difficulty: 0/10 No one, not even The Oracle has the slightest idea what this little patch does to the game at all. I'm not even sure if it does anything *else* besides changing the pre-game configuration screen a little. If you're a real Matrix fanatic, you should do it though. Just go and download it from: http://www.atarisupport.com/faq/enterthematrixdownloads_pc.asp If for some reason this link won't work, or if the download is too slow for your liking (it is for mine), you could try out these links: http://www.actiontrip.com/files/patches/enterthematrix.phtml http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/entermatrix/matrix_any-152.exe.html ~ 4. Manual Performance Tweaking ~ Priority: 3/10 - If you really want to Difficulty: 7/10 - Minimal Technical Knowledge Required First of all, I recommend changing the Page File if you're using Windows XP. It will somewhat improve your game speed if you have the hard disk space to do so. 01. Right click on 'My Computer' and select 'Properties' 02. Go to the 'Advanced' tab in the 'System Properties' window 03. Under the 'Performance' section, select the 'Settings' 04. Go to the 'Advanced' tab in the 'Performance Options' window 05. Click on the 'Change' button in the 'Virtual Memory' section 06. Change the initial and maximum page file size to your liking (preferably somewhere between 2500MB to 5000MB) 07. Press the 'Set' button (important step, must remember) Then, you can also change the startup items to the bare minimum. This is for Windows XP: 01. Press Start on the taskbar, then select 'Run' 02. Type in ' msconfig ' (without the quotes) 03. Go to the 'Services' tab 04. Disable some of the useless items, like: Error Reporting Service, nVidia Driver Helper Service, System Restore Service, Automatic Updates, etc 05. Go to the 'Startup' tab 06. Disable what you know you don't need (this varies from PC to PC) 07. Press OK and confirm the computer restart 08. After restart, check the box in the popup window and press OK There are some other stuff, but you'll have to find them for yourself. (should be no problem if you have some technical knowledge) *Notice: If anyone has any bright ideas, feel free to contact me. Thanks! ~ 5. Overclocking ~ Priority: 1/10 - If you're a performance extremist Difficulty: 10/10 - If you don't know what's overclocking, then forget it This is it, the Mother Holy Grail of Performance Tweaking. The final attempt to improve a game's performance. Many a man have fallen to this great feat, but if achieved, will sometimes improve the performance drastically. Though I myself practice such an act, I urge you not to unless you are totally sure of what you're doing. When overclocking, three things can happen: 1. Performance increases (Yay!) 2. Nothing (Oh well, at least nothing is...) 3. Some hardware gets fried (...wrong. Oops.) Though option number 3 is very unlikely to happen, some people prefer not to take such a risk and settle with moderate gameplay. Sometimes, moderation is the best path to take. (Sometimes...) I am not going to tell you how to overclock your processor or graphics card here. If you really want to know, you can check out some websites dedicated to overclocking. I'm not telling you where to find them. You'll have to look for it yourself. Trust me, I'm doing this for your own good. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *Notice: The author of this FAQ shall not be held responsible for any and all damage to any computer hardware or software, human limbs or organs, or any other assets owned by the victim caused by irresponsible or plain ignorant acts from the material included in this section. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -[ 02.03 | Bug Alert ]- "We think you're bugged." -Trinity, The Matrix Here's the place where I write about miscellaneous bugs which does not have so much impact on gameplay, but are still worth noting. ~ Viewing Videos in Hacking Mode ~ (thanks to Hang Loose for reminding me) This is a famous bug, found in most messageboards and FAQs. When you type in a command to view videos and press enter, the screen would just display "Viewing Video... Done" (or something like that) and not show the video. What you have to do is: after typing in the command, do *NOT* press Enter/Return on your keyboard. Instead, use the arrow keys to move the select box on the ingame keyboard (which is actually intended for game consoles) to the enter button, and press enter on the *number pad*. I know, this is wierd, but it works. Trust me. Though I can't deny the fact that it *IS* extremely annoying. ~ Super Dodging Agents Glitch ~ (thanks to Dark_Destroyer for reminding me) Since most people either run away from Agents or fight them hand-to-hand, I don't suppose many have found this glitch. You probably know that Agents could dodge bullets. What most people don't know is that they could dodge bullets even while they're laying flat on the ground. If this was possible, imagine the scenario: (Trinity points gun at Agent's face) Trinity: Dodge this. (SHOOTS) Agent: Okay. (Dodges the bullet) (Uh oh) ~ Gone Ethereal ~ I found this bug myself in the level where you have to drive to the exit while being chased by the twins. I crashed into a stack of pipes, or rather, gone through them. Then I hit a wall and fell into a non-existent hole, where the car ended up spinning and spinning in empty space. -[ Section 3 | The Construct ]- "This is the Construct. It is a loading program, where we can load clothing, equipment, training simulations, weapons... Anything we need." -Morpheus, The Matrix Well, okay, so I'm not going to cause a huge rack of weapons dramatically appear beside you right now, but it does serve as a purpose of training you in various things that could someday mean the difference between life and death to you in The Matrix. This section teaches you things from the basic controls to advanced stuff like hacking The Matrix itself. (that's what they say...) -[ 03.01 | Controls ]- This section is most probably obsolete, but I do know some people who are too ignorant to consult the manual when in doubt. So I just thought, "oh whatever, adding another section can't hurt..." (can it?). I only have one word for the controls: annoying. This is the most obvious proof of cross-platforming. Complaint number one: what's with 1 and 2 buttons being the 'Scroll weapon' keys? Haven't the developers at Shiny ever played action games? (or at least *PC* action games) They should very well know that players are used to the numbers being weapon hotkeys. But no, they have to mess it up and put them as scroll weapon keys. Complaint number two: mouse intergration? BLOAH to that! If you have played it, you should have noticed that the mouse freelook mode is a little... restrictive. You can't totally look up or down completely, so it's a very bad thing when you're being shot at from above or below. Complaint number three: what's autoaim doing in a *PC* game? There is an technological gadget (mostly) exclusive to the PC called... THE MOUSE. Bad Shiny... Bad, bad Shiny. Okay, so they messed up big time. But if you're a Matrix fan like I am, then *GET USED TO IT*. I did. Here are the control layouts, for your convenience. Default Controls: [Fighting] W - Move Forwards S - Move Backwards A - Sidestep Left D - Sidestep Right F - Action / Disarm E - Draw weapon / *Special weapon-drawing attack 1 - Scroll weapon left 2 - Scroll weapon right 3 - First Person Mode: Zoom in 4 - First Person Mode: Zoom out Shift - Focus Space - Jump Left Mouse Button - Primary Fire / Punch Right Mouse Button - Secondary Fire / Kick Right + Left Mouse Button - Throw [Driving] ~Niobe~ W - Accelerate S - Brake / Reverse A - Turn Left D - Turn Right Space - Emergency Brake Shift - Summon Ghost (to shoot at nearby cars) Left Control - Change Camera View (highly recommended) Left Mouse Button - Camera Turns Left Right Mouse Button - Camera Turns Right Left + Right Mouse Button - Camera Turns Behind