Do anybody still play this?
This is one of my favorite games and I still play it from time to time. I don't think there are any games like this it was so much fun dodging bullets and doing Kung fu, they should update this for the new consoles.
shareI found it rather bland, and the giganto-Smith nonsense at the end was nonsensical. (And no, the Wachoskis taking a moment to explain why they did it doesn't make it fit any better.) When I finished it I put it away and never touched it again.
That said, I don't think there's anything wrong in enjoying it. I really loved Enter the Matrix, which had a whole slew of problems, mostly technical. Still beat it a skidillion times with both characters, and explored all the extra content.
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Sometimes You Plant Seeds For Trees You Will Never Sit Under
Wow a reply almost a year later.
Anyways that ending was odd, but I still liked it, it was kinda fun. But just a bit misplaced.
It is kinda weird how you like Enter the Matrix more considering almost everyone agreed the Path of Neo was better. I guess to each their own though. I myself could never really get in to Enter the Matrix, maybe it was because I had played it after Path of Neo, so it was kinda a downgrade for me.
I'm curious as to why you liked Enter the Matrix though? Path of Neo did almost everything better.
P.S, and in no way am I crapping on Enter the Matrix even though it may sound that way. I'm genuinely curious.
Well, I was trawling through old boards and whatnot, and there it was. I don't think there's really a time-limit on such things, at least not here on IMDb's forums. :)
Anyway. Many people liked Path of Neo, but many people also liked Enter the Matrix. In fact, the reviews are fairly even between the two games. You can see this on any review-aggregate site you like, but here are links from Meta Critic:
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-matrix-path-of-neo
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-2/the-matrix-path-of-neo
http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox/the-matrix-path-of-neo
http://www.metacritic.com/game/gamecube/enter-the-matrix
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-2/enter-the-matrix
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/enter-the-matrix
So, no, "almost everyone" did not agree. Again, the reception was more or less split.
As to why I liked Enter the Matrix over Path of Neo, I felt this game was too bland and boring for my taste. It was just a rehash of the movies and, worse, didn't do anything interesting. It was just--there. Now, Enter the Matrix, taking place as it did "between" movies, told a different story, and further, you had two different sides to the story due to the option of playing as Ghost or Niobe.
But there were a lot of interesting things you could do, particularly with the side content. The "hacking" bits, unlocking things like the one-on-one fighting, so on and so on. I, personally, found the game itself to be better, both in terms of game play and in terms of story, and I enjoyed the many and varied bits of side-content.
I'm not saying it's an objectively "better" game; for one reason, as I said before, it had a metric butt-ton of glitches and whatnot. But I, personally, enjoyed it a lot better than this one.
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Sometimes You Plant Seeds For Trees You Will Never Sit Under
Fair enough, maybe I was exaggerating when I said everyone thought Path of Neo was better.
But c'mon, I can't speak for Enter the Matrix since I only played the first couple missions, but when you said that Path of Neo did nothing new I don't think you played the whole game through. Unless you did maybe you don't remember the weird mission with the giant ants, or the train mission, or even all the other missions that took place outside the movies. Plus, the game also had a very unique way of telling the story so your not just watching cutscenes from the movies.
And ignoring all that, how could you not like playing missions that are almost exact replicas of the movies? Anyways, I do understand why you would like Enter the Matrix better though, because it does tell a different story, but gameay wise I still don't understand.
I did play Path of Neo all the way through, but it was shortly after its release, so I'm sure I've forgotten quite a few things about it. I'll concede the elements that may not have been strictly copied from the movie. Still, I only beat it the once, because I recall being bored with it. I enjoyed some parts over others, though A) Found the whole to be disappointing, and B ) Found the ending to be absurd. I understand why it was the way it was, but that doesn't mean I dig it, you know?
And I don't dig playing missions that are near-exact replicas of the movies because I want to play a game. I want to have agency, choice. I want to do things my own way. When I want to watch the movie, I'll watch the movie, you know? If it told a different story or told the story in a different way, I think I'd have liked it a little more--or, at the least, disliked it a little less.
I think a good example of what I mean is the game based on the second Raimi-directed Spider-Man film: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/SpiderMan2. It examined the story from at some points similar (but not the same) perspectives, but at other points went in the opposite direction. Most notably, where the film had Parker consider giving up being Spider-Man, there it was him considering giving up being "just" Peter. Does that make sense? It looked at similar elements, but in at least slightly different fashions, and in some cases dramatically different.
That's what I want out of a video game that's based on another work. I don't want a strict carbon-copy of the original, because if I did I'd just return to the original. I generally want something in the same vein, though doing its own thing within that vein.
Another example would be the Phantom 2040 video game: http://www.phantomwiki.org/Phantom_2040_(video_game). It took the universe of the cartoon, but did its own thing with it. It didn't care about following the character's arc completely true to the cartoon, nor did it worry about the cartoon's internal canon. It took the universe, and kept the spirit, but ultimately went its own route. That's what I want out of a video game based on another work.
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Sometimes You Plant Seeds For Trees You Will Never Sit Under
You have some valid points there. I may even agree with them to some extent. That's one of the main reasons I don't buy remastered games that much, because why am I paying for what essentially just a rehash? I know it's only slightly the same reasoning, but still, I get where your coming from.
I've played many games based on movies, and none of them really are exact replicas of the movies. They do their own thing. And while Path of Neo is probably the closest game I've played that's almost exactly like the movie, it wasn't 100% just copying scenes from the movies. I play it maybe a couple times once a year, so I remember mostly everything, and I can tell you that only 40% of the game is actually just movie scenes. The rest is pretty much what you said, which was a different perspective. Or rather kind of like a behind the scenes. Such as Neo helping out other characters in the game, or even the training missions.
I can also vouch for the Spider-Man games since I've played all the ones based on the movies, except sadly the 2nd one. But yeah, they had some scenes out of the movies, but mostly focused on other stuff that happened offscreen. Which was fun, so I get your point. But Path of Neo was also in a way like that. Not nearly to the same extent as the Spider-Man games, but close enough to where it also had more content than just movie scenes.
I can see that. I wish I'd have gotten into Path of Neo more so I could really sink my teeth into such things, but such is life. :)
If you can find it, I'd definitely suggest to give the Phantom 2040 game a shot, and I say that not just because I'm obviously a fan of the character. It's a solid platformer action-adventure that had numerous multiple endings. As for the Spidey games, if you can find that one, definitely give it a shot. The web swinging alone is worth it; it's what a sandbox I think ought to be. It has a huge city (that to my knowledge hasn't been matched, size-wise, in a Spidey game before or since) with a simply fantastic way to get around. I'll be honest--the story isn't great, the graphics stink, and the voice-overs lead a bit to be desired, but at the end of the day it's a fun game.
I had a hard time getting into the game based on the third Raimi film, and thought the first Amazing-based title to be alright. Not stellar, but not bad. Just--okay. The second-Raimi-film-inspired game, though, that one I've clocked, literally, over two hundred hours on. I don't know how much more, as the in-game timer stops at ninety-nine hours, ninety-nine minutes, and ninety-nine seconds, but I've hit that limit twice, and had a bunch of other save files to boot. Yeah, I dig that one. :D
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Sometimes You Plant Seeds For Trees You Will Never Sit Under
Thanks for the recommendation, but I don't have any console that predates the ps2 sadly. Otherwise I'd probably play it since I do like arcade type games that look like that.
As for the Spider-Man games, I'm always on the look out for Spider-Man 2, but I can never seem to find it. One of these I'll just have to buy it online or something. Moving to the topic of the Amazing Spider-Man games, I played a good portion of the first one, and I just thought it was very generic. The combat system was mediocre, the missions weren't anything special, and the webslinging was the only good thing from what I remember, but the missions didn't really call for for you to actually use your webslinging. Which was so disappointing since I remember this one part where you had to chase a flying robot, and that was the most fun I had in that game, it truly made you feel like Spider-Man. And I did rent the 2nd one, but I only played it for an hour. Although if it's as good as you say it is I'll have to check it out again.
I'll tell you what though, the best Spider-Man games were Ultimate Spider-Man and Web of Shadows IMO.
Well. Not that I can tell you how to do such things, of course, but one could find emulators for, and ROMs of, such rather old games. Again, I obviously can't go into more detail, but. ;)
Anyway--I dunno. I didn't really like Ultimate Spider-Man as a game. The story was top-notch, and I've beaten it a bazillion times just for the story. The actual game part, though--in honesty, I found it boring. The city was too tiny for my taste; yes, it was much more vibrant than its immediate predecessor, Spider-Man 2, but just so tiny that I couldn't really enjoy it. The swinging was more irritating than fun. And the races against Johnny Storm--argh. Bloody terrible.
Web of Shadows I liked. I still think the second movie-based Spidey game is better, but I really dug that one. I thought some parts were simply absurd--like the trivia challenge against Wolverine, of all people, and some of the choices were--strange. Still, I did think it was a good game. I really enjoyed playing it.
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Sometimes You Plant Seeds For Trees You Will Never Sit Under
I'd get an emulator, but I don't want to risk getting a virus and I'm not too fond of playing on a keyboard, nor do I think my laptop can run such things.
Anyways, I see your point about ultimate Spider-Man, besides a very entertaining story and a Spider-Man that feels straight out of the comics, there's not much to do after beating the story. I myself still play because it genuinely feels like your in a comic book, and playing as venom is just amazing(pun intended).
The reason for me loving web of shadows though was because of its spectacular(pun also intended) combat system, it's personally my favorite Spider-Man when it comes to combat.
You can get a game pad, even from a good brand like Logitech, for reasonably cheap (depending on how you purchase, your geographical location, and such). This one at Target's pretty good; I've got a very similar model, and twenty-five bucks isn't terrible: http://www.target.com/p/logitech-f310-gamepad/-/A-13670128 Walmart seems to have a better selection, though. A search at Target's site only showed the one. Here's the same one at Walmart, but five bucks cheaper: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Logitech-F310-GamePad-PC/16419686. They have a lot of options: http://www.walmart.com/search/?query=logitech%20game%20pad&cat_id=2636 Then you have places like Best Buy, though I've never found their prices to be even comparable to other stores; they're usually a fair bit more expensive, in my experience. Plus there's whatever local, more low-key places you may have in your area.
There are reputable ROM sites out there, but you have to do a little digging and some background-checking, see what people are saying, and I really can't imagine your laptop having a problem. My old P.o.S. Dell Inspiron 15-something-or-other (the crappiest model in the crappiest line from a crappy company) ran them more or less just fine. They're not resource-hogs; now, I'm not sure I'd try to emulate a PS1, and I'd certainly not try to emulate a PS2 on that old crap-box, but the Genesis/SNES era, it ran without a hitch.
As for the Spidey games: That makes sense. I don't remember a whole lot about the combat from Web of Shadows. I did kind of like the combat from Ultimate, though I thought getting rid of a specific Dodge function and just using jumping in its place was a mistake. Still, it had that zipping-around-like-a-kangaroo-on-uppers feel to it that I thought really fit Spider-Man, so.
After Ultimate, there's running around as Venom, but I got tired of the insane races, and running from SHIELD is a slice of fried gold, I say, but it gets tiresome. So I'd usually beat that, then go back to Spider-Man: The Movie 2 and just swing around forever and a day. :D
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Sometimes You Plant Seeds For Trees You Will Never Sit Under
Thanks for the info. I'll have to look into that now since maybe my laptop isn't that bad.
As for the spidey games, one of the things I actually didn't like about ultimate Spider-Man was the combat, it was very generic. I prefer more combos and a better display of Spider-Man's powers, but I think they got the swinging right, it was a bit fast but still. But my god, those race challenges were something else. I gave up on them when it started taking me 30 minutes to beat them, that is on platinum by the way.
Humorously, I hated the swinging in Ultimate. I thought it was bland and boring; it made travel tedious. For me, it lacked the excitement of the second movie-based game, and was--just a way to get around. No more, no less. As for the races, I don't think I got Platinum on very many. They were just--insane. Screw 'em.
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Sometimes You Plant Seeds For Trees You Will Never Sit Under
Well maybe, you just didn't know how to fully take it to its advantage, no offense. I mean the races were absolutely insane, but I'm not gonna lie and say it didn't help me improve. When you do enough of them on platinum, you star to pick up on tricks. Like you know how you have to cross the bridge to get to the other side of the city, I always found that part to be extremely tedious, but there is a way to just use your webs to cross all that water, kinda like in the first Spider-Man towards the end when he uses one web on each hand to gain momentum. But I get it, my first play through was horrible because the webbing would go all over the place and was difficult to get control of. The problem is that it was meant to be very fast due to the races, so I can see how someone would find the web slinging boring.
shareIt's quite possible I didn't take full advantage of it, but it just didn't seem--interesting. There wasn't anything to do. Swing, climb the line a bit; swing, climb the line a bit; swing, climb the line a bit... The second movie-based game required on-the-fly planning, and was actually exhilarating. Ultimate seemed just--functional, to me. Do you know what I mean?
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Sometimes You Plant Seeds For Trees You Will Never Sit Under
Yeah I know what you mean. The first Spider-Man game was exactly like that, although I still found it fun. But yeah, you have to do the races to truly utilize the web slinging. Otherwise there's really no point to it other than just being there. I just wanted to point out that there is a purpose to it. Anyways, now you really got me wanting to play Spider-Man 2 :)
shareHa. Good! It's a fantastic game; the web-swinging outshines the other (admittedly many) ways the game's a bit of a let-down. :D Like I said, I've logged well over two hundred hours on it; probably over three hundred, really.
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Sometimes You Plant Seeds For Trees You Will Never Sit Under