News
Sega Announces
The Matrix Online for the PC
by Tim Surette
What is the Matrix? Sega says it’s a Massive Multiplayer Online PC title.
Los Angeles - Wednesday May 12, 2004 - Amidst a crowd of information-thirsty journalists, Sega announced their latest, and possibly biggest adventure in the upcoming months. Working alongside Seattle-based Monolith Productions and Warner Brothers Interactive, Sega is hoping that The Matrix Online will help Sega tap into the PC market and be a huge hit when it is released this Fall. Jason Hall, Senior Vice-President of Warner Brothers Interactive, said “We are very excited about the partnership (with Sega)”, stressing Sega’s reputation and focus on quality gameplay. He also stressed the groundbreaking elements in the massive multiplayer online genre, and accentuated their desire to “make it the best game in the genre.”
Of course, the Wachowski Brothers will be on hand to oversee the project once
again, developing storylines in what is essentially the fourth installment of
the Matrix series. Sega plans on having the game go Beta on June 6th,
which seems a little late, considering the Fall release and only a 75%
completion as of now.
The demonstration we were treated to was a “super brawl”, with participants in
the Sega exhibit booth, a nearby graphics-card booth, and in Monolith
Productions in Seattle. In this Matrix-esque battle royale, as many as sixteen
participants could be seen slugging away at each other in a large town square.
All the moves were signature Matrix moves, including black belt blocks,
lightning-fast punches, and of course the “I’m going to kick you in the face
five times and pretend your forehead is a staircase” move, a crowd favorite.
Prefer your action with a little gunpowder? Several of the brawlers were
double-fisting automatic pistols and spraying bullets through the crowd like a
disgruntled high-schooler. Plenty of throws and grapples were also included in
the action, making the fighting system, which features more than one hundred
moves, a combination of Tekken-style martial arts, 3rd-person gun
combat, and WWE Wrestling. It was indeed impressive for a massive multiplayer
online game. In addition to the fighters, hackers can also enter the action by
powering-up or attacking players, though no details were given on what the role
hackers really play in the game.
I was most impressed at the scale of the playable area. The preview showed
combatants running and jumping from skyscraper to skyscraper into new rooms, all
fully furnished, and all fully playable. A Monolith representative, identified
only as Melissa, promised that the buildings in the background could all be
entered, as could the rooms within it. The graphics and sound seemed to be
pretty much ready-to-go, and were very good. Animations were smooth, even with
more than ten players on the screen at one time, and the sound fully captured
the feel of being in a street brawl, gunfire erupting and thugs grunting. If
they deliver, it could be full fighting action on an insanely grand scale.
It’s hard at this moment to tell what direction the game is going to go. There
were no obvious RPG elements, no details on a storyline, and nothing more than
fighting was on display. Melissa said “Monolith’s answer to ‘What is the
Matrix?’ is ‘The chance of a lifetime.’” Let’s hope that holds true for us, the
gamers. After all, we all said the same thing about “Enter the Matrix.”
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