Enter The Matrix: 2003 Retro Time Capsule PC vs Original Xbox - A Truly Hilarious PC Port

[@throwawayjustforpostingvid3129]

I like that John is basically roleplaying a frustrated Morpheus as he's giving Alex directions through the games maze like environments.

[@BaronVonHaggis]

lol

[@itsd0nk]

“Turn left. Go. NOW!”

[@moosemaimer]

Ever see that video "what if the Matrix ran Windows XP?" "Unfreeze. Unfreeze! Press CTRL-ALT-DEL!"

[@MrStrangermoon]

the first mission sutupid design make it purposly the fellt that player want to escape. after agents involded on story you feel that more intencely too.

[@imnotgivingmy_name_toamach7491]

"Am I not supposed to shoot them?" "Uh, maybe wait for the enemies"

[@Obscusion2]

This is seriously one of the most constantly hilarious things I've ever seen on Digital Foundry. We need an entire series where John & Alex simultaneously play games that have either an infamously bad console or PC release, and just let these two experience the madness in real time, because this was just amazing. I nominate the OG PC port of Resident Evil 4.

[@moosemaimer]

I think the fact I'm being recommended a Rifftrax video says it all.

[@Raivo_K]

This game is so bugged that agents tried to mess with my internet connection when i was watching the video. Odd because usually my ISP is very stable. Had to wait a few minutes and reload. Looks like the bugs from the PC port are spreading. Am i infected now? Is this even real? HELP!

[@TheSynrgy1987]

I really wanna check this out on some retro systems now :D

[@crithon]

this is more therapeutic than funny. A lot of us at the time WANTED these ports to run better than a PS2 version.... and here's proof that we were not all insane.

[@VergilHiltsLT]

Not just a bad port, but a terrible game all around. Like DF said, Path of Neo is superior in every way, especially on PS2 and Xbox (PS2 was the original version).

[@mcrsit]

I demand a full playtrough with John guiding Alex. It was the most hilarious thing ever

[@NeptunePirate]

Agreed lmao

[@fcukugimmeausername]

John guiding Alex through the level is like a parody of Morpheus guiding Keanu out of the office at the beginning of the first Matrix.

[@spooky_electric]

"Oh nice, you figured how to walk." "You see, the thing is John, I have no idea why my character is walking." I laughed

[@VladQuake]

two people playing the same game at the same time on two different systems and streaming while communicating about what is happening in both of their instances is a cool unexplored format

[@jeffschleg9665]

This game had a few patches and one of them broke the driving sections where they run twice the speed than intended and speedrunners use that patch to speedrun the game.

[@striderx777]

I'm so glad they got to one of the car chases. I remember that being SOOOOO broken. I had to replay those levels several times because the scripted car flat out got stuck and did not know how to continue. What a fantastic game that I had blocked from my memory because of how terrible the PC version was. Thank you for all that awful nostalgia alex and john.

[@VergilHiltsLT]

That can also happen in the console versions, it's just a badly made game in general.

[@chrisdibella257]

@@VergilHiltsLT It was heavily rushed

[@VergilHiltsLT]

@@chrisdibella257 Yeah, and they released it on 3 consoles and PC. Brilliant idea when you have no time and resources, lol. Unfortunately, that's what you get when you have publishers like Atari. Poor Shiny, I'm sure they did their best as proven with Path of Neo (which was terrible on PC, but great on consoles).

[@pferreira1983]

Playing as Ghost was fine but the driving stages with Niobe was a joke. 😆

[@thetombuck]

I had the PC version. If you were Ghost, Niobe would ram the car into a wall and get stuck. If you played as Niobe, Ghost would shoot randomly and wildly and the enemy cars would ram themselves into walls and get stuck. Good times

[@ninjapants7688]

"Please have geometry on the other side of this door" This made me laugh so damn hard.

[@igodreamer7096]

"No one really knows what Enter The Matrix PC port is. You can only experience it, live it. And witness the wonders that only that port can show"

[@Argoon1981]

The game was far from good, janky combat and controls, bad animations, specially after playing Max Payne but this video is wrong, the PC version doesn't look that bad and is a case of a game breaking on a retro PC, perhaps because of bad drivers, or some bad configuration and everyone and their mother now thinks that is how it always looked.

[@cannedbeverage7687]

@@Argoon1981 Yeah, other than texture filtering (which is an easy fix on modern PCs), W buffer and minor gfx bugs/changes, it's the same game as on console. And if you're wondering, I indeed did make a typo.

[@tomstonemale]

@Argoon1981 You didn't even bother to watch the video

[@pferreira1983]

@@Argoon1981 As someone who played the game back in the day it was a ground breaking game. Alex made it look much worse than it actually is.

[@InMaTeofDeath]

This game absolutely had it's flaws but there was one part I enjoyed so much I'd often replay it just to do it again. The hand to hand combat system is actually really fun the problem is everything dies so fast you really don't get the chance to flex your skills. Until...you get to the level with the vampire enemies that do not die until you stake them in the heart. Those prolonged fights were always worth coming back to and I'd love a whole game where the combat lasted that long.

[@fcukugimmeausername]

Why are vampires in a Matrix game?

[@martinkosecky4943]

@@fcukugimmeausername They were also in Matrix: Reloaded, Revolutions and Resurrections. They come from the previous version of Matrix, also known as the "nightmare Matrix". After machines realized that having such a complete nightmare dystopia full of monsters is not exactly something humanity is happy about, they rebooted Matrix to the form we know in the trilogy. However some of the old monsters from the previous version of the Matrix managed to save themselves from being reprogrammed and now serve the Merovingian.

[@TheCrackMonkey]

@@martinkosecky4943 m Ai

[@jbway86]

@@martinkosecky4943 the old matrix? Was there a book or some old information in the vault that detailed that info? Im actually curious because said it from prior to the trilogy which is unbeknowst to me.

[@clementrousseau3571]

Well if you want more, that’s basically the entirety of the first Buffy game on Xbox, which, if I remember correctly, was pretty decent.

[@Games-tx1zc]

If y'all ever get a chance, I gotta recommend the PS2 era LOTR games. They would blend between clips from the movies and gameplay and it was mind blowing at the time. Having gone back to look at them with modern eyes they are hilariously bad. Y'all would get a kick out of it. Edit: The games are great fun, I just mean the transitions are wildly overambitious for the time!

[@CaptainKenway]

I've been playing through The Third Age recently, which is the bizarre Final Fantasy X meets LotR one. All of the storytelling in that is done with hideously-compressed montages from the movies with new Gandalf dialogue over the top. In fairness, they did at least get Ian McKellen. The game itself is pretty underwhelming. And the main character looks like he permanently has big head mode enabled.

[@legendp2011]

I remember enjoying the return of the king game (also the hobbit game by serria)

[@Zorkkaelain]

I replayed the PC version of Return of the KIng a year or two ago, and it holds up surprisingly well for a game from 2003. Characters are a bit blocky and most textures are pretty muddy, but environments are well designed and there's quite a lot of geometry on the screen at the same time. Fog and particle effects are also great for a game of the era.

[@BerryBurgerMeister]

I actually love those games haha

[@Rebelscum264]

They still stand up

[@mightylink65]

I had this on GameCube, it came on 2 discs because of all the live action cutscenes.

[@retrogamer64007]

Me too. Man it was so exciting as a hardcore matrix fan. Man I miss those days 😢

[@ADominacja]

I really liked how chill this video was, just two people hanging out and making fun of Enter The Matrix

[@NeroVingian40]

They were trying to be as serious as they can, but the game wouldn’t let them. The car chase at the end was hilarious

[@MadsterV]

38:35 Back then, sometimes console and PC versions would have different FOV because console players would be assumed to be playing from a couch, far away from the screen, while PC players are assumed to be right in front of their monitors, so the projection is adjusted for that distance. This changes the framing, so they would also fiddle with camera placement. I always thought this was silly, but then I played Halo on PC and had to adjust FOV because the default was zoomed way in for couch players.

[@brunocar02]

that last part is actually wrong, the halo PC port, unmodded, was badly made so widescreen was broken, see, the FOV was maintained horizontally, instead, the vertical FOV would get reduced, so chunks of your FOV up and down the screen would be gone. check old vids of the PC port, notice how the red lights of the magnum cant be seen unless you shoot.

[@MadsterV]

@@brunocar02 What I meant is that I had to change the FOV myself because it was too zoomed in for desktop play (while other games came with this change by default). I've seen videos of the console version of Halo looking just like it was on PC (as you say, it was maintained), but for playing close up to the screen that's no good and I had to change it (like other games did in the PC port). I don't know about vertical, I wasn't comparing back then, It just felt awkward.

[@brunocar02]

@@MadsterV well yeah, what im telling you is that the FOV on the original PC port is actually more zoomed in than on xbox

[@MadsterV]

@@brunocar02 "the FOV was maintained horizontally"

[@christop2735]

Those square wheels ! Had me dying :D I remember my friend had this game on Xbox and we played this game so much. Great game!

[@Matto7634]

First thing I noticed was the square wheels, have 0 idea why they litterally did nothing to improve it. 🤣

[@flaviusseverus8507]

@@Matto7634 probably didn’t want to reinvent the wheel

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

@@Matto7634 You can't improve art. Besides, throwing a simple circle texture over both sides of the wheel, and wrapping a texture strip over the middle, so that you can't see the individual polygons? That's cheating.

[@halofreak1990]

@@flaviusseverus8507 You win the internet today

[@EverywhereIgoIball]

I remember this game so well, was one of the first games I played on my "new" at the time GeForce 4 MX440. It basically marked an extremely important moment in my gaming adventure. However, that sniper scene from the airport tower....my God.

[@MegaKiri11]

I got GeForce 3 Ti200 instead! It's better, even though 3 is less than 4 :D

[@Wogle]

Oh wow, I had that card! I think it was the 64MB model. Eventually changed that to an FX 5500

[@Steinegal]

@@MegaKiri11 yeah the GeForce 4 MX440 is just a version of the Geforce 2 as it is a DX7 GPU. The GeForce 3 is way faster and has DX8.1 support. Built my first computer the autumn of 2002 and of course got the Radeon 9700 that absolutely destroyed the GeForce 4 Ti

[@mindrover777]

Same here. Was a decent card for the budget gamer.

[@bjedo3]

I was so excited when this was released. It was one of the first games I remember thinking, “what the hell is gamma?” The tea house fight was my favorite part

[@joebaxter6895]

Played this on PS2 back in the day and remember it fondly. Amazing how when it comes to graphics they are always amazing at the time. Makes you wonder how we will look at games like Red Dead Redemption in the future and laugh.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

These graphics weren't good back then, either. Doom III (Xbox), Resident Evil Remake (GC), God of War 2 (PS2)...they were the state of the art graphics for the time. And even mid-tier games like BloodRayne 2 look better than this.

[@Loundsify]

@@juststatedtheobvious9633 it was good for 2003.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

@@Loundsify Splinter Cell was 2002.

[@pferreira1983]

@@juststatedtheobvious9633 Nah it looked awesome back in 2003. Path of Neo looked terrible and that came after.

[@djwhitepeople]

It definitely did not look good at the time. I distinctly remember being upset that I'd spent an entire month's allowance on a game that looked so bad, lol.

[@gimptoast]

Personally I absolutely adored this game when I was young, the hacking aspects to enable cheats or different game modes or footage was amazingly unique for it's time on console and the combat was really fun.

[@Mrs_Puffington]

Member-berries ;) Path of Neo would be an interesting revisit though. They did some crazy stuff with all those Smiths attacking you and stuff.

[@MsRifle]

That "What the Hell Happened" was perfectly placed at 51:55 🤣 I loved this game as a kid and I found this video hilarious!

[@Farshad.Barnoos]

I loved this game on my PS2, it's interesting how its first mission is similar to Remedy's Control level design and art direction with a different color scheme of course.

[@er7hos]

As someone who was a tad too young to really remember playing this game ar release I got heavy Control vibes from the lobby setting as well

[@CaptainVKanth]

Now that you mentioned it. Alan Wake feels like a superior take over Alone in Dark( 2005).

[@SeiyaDLuffy]

I thought i was the only one that saw similities with Control on this game

[@bpowick]

Watching this makes me crave for a new Matrix game. As basic as it was I really enjoyed Enter The Matrix, especially the combat and bullet time moves. There's so much potential there, especially with current console and PC hardware.

[@xym07]

Check out The Matrix Awakens techdemo! Probably the most advanced console graphics to date.

[@bpowick]

@matej nemec I don’t know why I never got around to playing it. I might have to try and hunt down a copy.

[@buzzlopavich]

I was hoping you would bring up the truly crazy controls on the xbox. Me and a friend got this game when we where 14, back in 2003, we where big fans of the matrix and went to see reloaded in the cinema. The game still managed to disapoint but I remember spending most of our time in the hidden fighting game mode that you get via the hacking game!

[@LonghornsLegend]

Lol I'm currently replaying this again on Xbox do you remember how that mode was accessed?

[@buzzlopavich]

@@LonghornsLegend as far as I recall it was an unlock you got via the hacking game, it wasn't fully fledged. Just the two main characters fighting it out in (I think) a room with a piano

[@LuckyLuciano42]

That brings child memories, had it for Gamecube. This game was so much fun.

[@jbway86]

Same 🥲

[@haloharry97]

same, loved the two discs. I just wished, the men was on one and the female on the other.

[@JamesCook76131]

@@haloharry97 right in the feeLings with the 2 disc.

[@jbway86]

The Path of Neo was better.

[@haloharry97]

@Why The Hell Was I In Star Trek 6? I enjoyed the game back then.

[@d3x7r0]

Such a perfect ending. Having THAT pop up there was absolutely perfect

[@raresmacovei8382]

It's amazing we now have all these tools nowadays like DXVK and DgVodoo or ToGL that basically fix performance, resolution or graphical effects or make these games run on Windows 10/11 with modern hardware.

[@MarkLumsley]

I enjoy this format of videos where Alex and John are having a good time with gameplay while breaking it apart and seeing how they tick on various hardware. MORE, PLEASE! :D

[@Vanfernal]

This informal format of video was great. You guys should do more of this. Very entertaining!

[@rowanunderwood]

They have done these before: Check out the splinter cell Xbox vs PC video :)

[@Vanfernal]

@@rowanunderwood Ooh. Haven't seen that one. Thanks for the heads up!

[@Funnylittleman]

I was 12 when this was released and I thought it was MAGIC! The most immersive game I’d ever played at the time. I was obsessed with the movies and this felt like I was a part of them. I miss that childish enthusiasm and imagination.

[@Loundsify]

I was a similar age and this game was mind blowing to me at the time.

[@electrikoptik]

Alex + John = the dynamic duo!

[@191desperado]

I hope these videos get the views they deserve. This is just such a good chill time.

[@reshaykut]

I loved this game so much. After i experienced Unreal ENGINE 5, I'm so hyped for a new Matrix game. They should make one !

[@YOBAMUSTDIE]

we don't need new matrix games, they are going to be crap, we just need unreal 5 remakes of enter the matrix and path of neo where cgi and fmv sequences with real actors will be just indistinguishable from each other.

[@reshaykut]

@CYB3R2K30 I don't fuking care success or failure of the movie. Making films has nothing to do with making video games. There is single valid example here The Matrix Awekens which is designed by Epic Games and it's ( playable ) and in this industry we saw that a graphic engine demo has become a beautiful game, Detroit Become Human.

[@nogo3107]

Omg....Those Fred Flintstone Tires nearly made me spit coffee all over my keyboard in laughter! Thanks for the great start to my day!

[@CyborgSodaCollects]

"ship it"

[@FdupTV]

It's hard to tell the difference between this and The Matrix Awakens at times, tbh

[@Loundsify]

Probably because they did a good job of capturing the feel of the movies.

[@VergilHiltsLT]

@@Loundsify You didn't get the sarcasm. This game is unfinished garbage.

[@Zwim]

As someone who has played this game at least around 10 times, you can play around with the settings and fix the square wheels easily. However the bad part is, you will no longer have square wheels.

[@pferreira1983]

Honestly I'm pretty sure Alex had the wrong settings applied.

[@reecekirk9284]

I remember playing this and thinking it was hyper realistic when I was a kid 😂

[@itsd0nk]

I was super unimpressed with it right at launch. I laughed at it while watching my friend play. Once I saw Halo CE on Xbox, my eyes were permanently spoiled with game graphics for the rest of that whole generation of consoles and PC games.

[@Argoon1981]

That is not how the game looks on PC! I have it, I installed it again after this video and it doesn't look that bad! Also anyone can see old youtube videos of the game on PC and you will see it looks nothing like this video is showing.

[@itsd0nk]

@@Argoon1981 did you listen to the video? They explain and even show how it looks without the mod that makes the performance barable. It runs at like 5fps when the camera moves without forcing LOD’s to low.

[@freshnesbro3792]

it was hyper realistic, halo looked like shid compared to this, imo.

[@itsd0nk]

@@freshnesbro3792 Halo had buttery smooth and rich looking materials and environments compared to everything else in the early 2000’s. Pretty much the only console game at all to even be using pixel shaders around that time. So everything looked like it was made on construction paper and glue, while Halo had a solid and tangible feeling to the visuals. Even the way bullets would light up the environments as they passed by walls, rocks and grass. Specular highlights with bump mapping, dynamic lighting from muzzle flashes, explosions, and projectiles. Without knowing what any of these things were back then, the only thing I knew was that almost every single other video game looked like the South Park pilot episode and Halo made me feel like I was in an actual, tangible environment.

[@tjbrawley9266]

One of my favorite DF videos to date! Lots of laughs, I pray we can see more of this kind of content in the future.

[@pobbityboppity1110]

Omg I am so hyped for this. Already rules and I’m 10 minutes on. Thank you DF, this is the content I want

[@CharlesVanNoland]

The environment mapping back when was "sphere mapping" which used a single texture mapped as an environment sphere when generating reflection vectors to sample the texture. The thing was that it was super basic and low rez - you couldn't do like how HL Source engine had the environment probes that generated per-area cubemaps to use on reflective/shiny surfaces where it kinda almost lines up with the actual environment if you're near where the actual probe position is. Sphere mapping was more just to provide the illusion of shininess and reflectivity. They're also using it on dude's glasses and a few other select areas but this was when multitexturing was expensive (sorta like how it is on the Oculus Quest headsets today) and so it was used sparingly - or sometimes if a reflective surface didn't need to have an underlying texture they would only use the spheremap and just artistically tweak the spheremap texture to include the underlying material coloration.

[@itsd0nk]

The first matrix film is one of those rare instances of a perfect movie. Absolutely perfect, from beginning to end. The screenplay, the cinematography, the story, acting, pacing, choreography, all of it. If only they were allowed to take their time making the sequels and weren’t cramped with producers over their shoulders during the whole production of them.

[@DeanCalaway]

That's not why the sequels were so sub par, for a start the Wachowski brothers stole the whole concept for the movie, got sued, had to pay compensation. The movie itself was heavily built on high school philosophy concepts that had nowhere else to go, so more than else... It didn't need a sequel(s) it only got them because money. But left to their own devices, that's what they were able to come up with, shallow empty mediocre shells and this new one isn't any better.

[@chrisrichfield8906]

@@DeanCalaway I think Reloaded was doing great, up until the fight with all the Smith copies. That fight is just so ridiculous its hard to take the story seriously at all from that point on. The bowling ball sound effect really seals the deal.

[@itsd0nk]

@@DeanCalaway the Animatrix is A+ though, especially The Second Renaissance. I’m aware of the derivative nature of the first film. It didn’t stop it from being a perfectly made screenplay with great choreography and cinematography. There was nothing stopping that from happening again, if conditions had perhaps been a bit different. The cinematographer went on record about the amount of pressure from execs constantly poking around and the rushed nature of everything during the sequels. The scripts were rushed too. While it was pretty much just lightning in a bottle with the first one, the fact that the animatrix came out so brilliant indicates there was plenty of juice left to be made out of the world. I haven’t liked anything from the Wachowskis since 1999. It’s too bad they couldn’t catch that lightning in a bottle again since then. It’s the George Lucas effect. Victory can defeat you. Artists are best when they’re hungry.

[@GreatBeardofWisdom]

@@itsd0nk Agred on the Animatrix. The Second Renaissance 1&2 helped me further understand the overall plot of the film, and I commend it for that.

[@ZeAllMighty1]

@@DeanCalaway the story that the Wachowski’s lost a lawsuit and had to pay compensation for stealing the plot isn’t true. Also it’s not the Wachowski brothers.

[@davidsdesign543]

John and Alex deep diving into 00's videogames is my favourite genre

[@ADSLPL]

I laughed sharply as you started talking about the wheels. Until my mother asked from the other room what I was laughing about xDD

[@Zycyzyx]

This is one of those games where you if you play it enough, you may pass a weird mental threshold where the ridiculous obvious jank falls away and it's just fun. I found 2 or 3 specific missions I could just play over and over and always enjoy.

[@AndersLnning]

Ya'll should take a look at the Xbox versions of Max Payne 1 and 2 compared to the PS2 and PC version

[@rapscallionsith8152]

Alex's laugh at about 48:35 is I think the best thing I have heard on DF.

[@Hannuraina]

holy shit those wheels. havent laughed that hard in a while. great vid as usual

[@morbid1.]

I remember playing Max Payne 1 with mods that made bullet time longer, bullets had ripple effect, different dodges moves, kung fu combat, wall running and music from matrix (Propellerheads - Spybreak) played during slomo... it was the best shit ever. Video games peaked then.

[@Kenjitsuka]

When Alex said "A glitch in the Matrix" was one of the best lols in awhile! :D

[@dun0790]

The pc version really looks to me like what a psp version might have looked like but then again i dont even remember square tires on ps1 lol

[@paulj5336]

That was so funny. I remember enjoying this back in 2003. A friend lent me his Gamecube when I spent 3 weeks in the summer with a broken foot from skateboarding. I remember how bad the level designs were at points. One level loaded for ages only for you to run across a roof and climb a ladder, then back for more loading. Lol.

[@jonusiescu]

I remember playing this as a kid on Pentium IV 2 Ghz, 256 RAM and Geforce 2MX and honestly? I cannot remember that performance was so poor. Probably it wasn't 60 fps all the time, but even back then I was rather sensitive about low fps. I was playing with LOD off and finished the game 4 times, so it was definitely running well enough. Problems with some specific configurations maybe?

[@thomasclark8559]

I played this game back then, on a Pentium 4 @ 2GHz, 384MB RAM, GeForce 3 Ti500 and it was not this broken! XD I'm wondering what drivers are being used...? I've often found newer Nvidia divers break a lot of old games, even for old cards. I've had to use drivers closer to the release date of the game, to get them working properly. Old magazine demo disks are handy for old drivers.

[@RetroGamingX1]

The footage in this video for the PC version is configured incorrectly, it's running in low graphic details, that's why the wheels look like squares... saludos!

[@koodeus6170]

I was thinking the same thing about the NVIDIA driver.

[@Nebuloa305]

I had a better experience on pc using a geforce 2 card running 800x600. Lod details were on normal and it may not have run great but it didnt stutter this bad or look so crappy. Some config is off here.

[@thomasclark8559]

Yep. Something does seem off. I considered that if there is a driver issue, it could make the game think it's got less powerful hardware to work with, so it uses lower LOD settings. The disappearing walls seem like a driver issue too. Some sort of culling or z-buffer issue. Basically something seems off in the communication between game and GPU. I've also had big issues with motherboard chipset drivers, from that era, too. They can be very unstable which could cause issues with I/O which could be a reason for the stuttering?

[@RetroGamingX1]

@@thomasclark8559 I tested the game (v1.52) and I have not found problems... in the configuration tool the "LOD" option must be deactivated so that graphically it looks correct (max polygonal load) even better if the patch is used widescreen fix. Tested on Win10 2004, GTX970@497.09 & X-Fi Titanium (The game supports EAX 3) saludos!

[@coldscooter]

I honestly could have watched 5 hours of this. Lol. Please do more of these!

[@jcfan1979]

I remember liking this game on XBOX even though it wasn't the best. This video was a riot watching you guys play through and suffer all the glitches. Thanks!

[@Loundsify]

So I played the shit out of this game when I was 13 on PS2 and that final lobby scene in the post office was so fun to play as the PS2's version had breakable pillar tiles which made it very fun to play. I can't believe the Xbox version doesn't have that!

[@REAL6]

I really wish we could get a remaster or remake of both games.

[@Ablequerq]

No thanks.

[@sugadagud3093]

Or just make a new game.

[@duckpwnd]

I was hoping they would have rereleased the xbox versions in Microsoft's og xbox catalog, but sadly it looks like that program has come to an end.

[@Jaytwisty23]

Or how about the industry moves past remakes, remasters and reboots and get creative again and actually release some new ips

[@Clay3613]

Unreal 5 remake would be amazing.

[@CharlesVanNoland]

@31:00 that failure to depth test properly with the Z-buffer is actually what the W-buffer really does. Also, I was thinking "Wachowski-buffer".

[@SpacedAug]

I utterly lost it at the "technical difficulties" cut

[@riaz8783]

49:05 Hardest I've laughed this year. John's car forgets how gravity works while everything in Alex's game is smashing into buildings.

[@clarenceboddicker6679]

In my opinion the devs of this game succesfully employed a gameplay mechanic which made the player feel like a total bad ass. There definitily was an impressive artistic flare to the motion captured fighting choreography. I believe the devs drew some inspiration from Jackie Chan movies. Chan turned fighting choreography into a high precision art form.

[@Loundsify]

I remember the scene with the dojo master and it was just like the movie, the game captures the look and feel of the matrix reloaded.

[@JimJamsMusic]

I loved this game as a kid. Really cool watching you guys go back and play it.

[@brandonginsburg3120]

You could swap Niobe/Ghost skins for Trinity/Neo/Morpheus only on the PC. It was a liitle involved but not hard. Unfortunately, the PC version lacked the hidden multiplayer.

[@NeroVingian40]

Video went from trying to be as informative as possible at first, to just being crazy funny by the end of it. Gold content here, guys lol

[@danielwilliams3161]

I have the PC port on CD, I always found it looked just like the Xbox version that I'm looking at in this video, but now I realised that I was wrong, because I was only exposed to one version of the game

[@sunray2818]

So do I guess I have to buy an Xbox or PS2 copy, the PC version left me with PTSD back in the day...

[@Loundsify]

The PS2 version is very good imo, you should emulate it and try it for yourself.

[@VergilHiltsLT]

Play Path of Neo on PS2 instead /emulate it. Not regrets, and looks fantastic with Reshade.

[@semsmejd]

I remember also having the issue with characters auto walking in games from this era - I then figured out that it was caused by having connected gamepad that was also inputting the "UP or forward" input, unplugging the gamepad fixed all the games that had issues I hope this is applicable even for Alex :)

[@TyDean4Real]

I had this game preordered. I remember getting it day 1 as a kid, and then trying to convince my dickhead "friends" that it was fun. I think I played through half the game in one night showing it off like a salesman. They weren't convinced. I stand by my opinion that it's great.

[@winlover37]

I enjoyed this game when I was a kid, but as an adult I'm astounded that a video game inspired by framchises like the Matrix, does bullet time better than an actual Matrix game.

[@GavinUK_86]

I played it on PS2 at the time and loved it. With a few tweaks to get it running on a modern PC, it looks fine now. Mouse controls still suck though.

[@DaYoda191]

Those square wheels ruined my day as a kid, I could not progress any further and I had so idea what to do lol. I still think about that all the time

[@arbayer2]

Bender: "And I think I saw square wheels D:" Fry: "It's okay, Bender, there's no such thing as square wheels. :)"

[@pavo7806]

Apparently the developers allowed an option to use LOD models as a checkbox, and since most people checked out all boxes, this is what ended happening.

[@mariodelrio2387]

Ah i ser

[@arbayer2]

You know, that's a good point, wonder how it impacted the review season for it

[@shikarizero]

I used to play a lot this game on the pc and it doesn't look like that at all, maybe on very low settings. It should look like the footage from the left if not better due to the resolution being able to go as high as 1600x1200 if i remember right. Such nostalgia, still have the CDs!

[@HomeworkRadio]

Really like this game!

[@Booka3141]

There's something about it for sure, i have more fondness for this than path of neo.

[@the_gmer1955]

This game is good.

[@tatsumaru12345]

Not a terrible game! Path of neo was though. God awful

[@VergilHiltsLT]

@@tatsumaru12345 Godawful? How exactly? It had a ton of moves, grabs, throws, physics, huge levels and great fights + tons of bosses. Enter the Matrix literally has 5 "moves" and combat consists of pure button mashing, it doesn't even have dodges in melee fights. Bosses have the same exact AI and moves as regular opponents. Levels are super linear tunnels or wide open warehouses with nothing other to do than run. Clearly unfinished game and just looks awful for 2003. Path of Neo is the exact opposite, particularly the PS2 and Xbox versions, PC port was utterly broken to say the least. The entire video was DF literally roasting Enter the Matrix not just as a crappy port, but as a bad, janky video game that looks like it's about to fall apart. It's a hideous game and was panned by critics. 20:36 animation says it all. The only thing saving it is your nostalgia, but Shiny was completely shunned for this game, it didn't even have Neo as the main character. Just some boring nonames and Niobe wasn't even central to the movies. If you think otherwise, you clearly haven't played a good game.

[@VioletPrism]

This is the best matrix game for sure :)

[@user-og6hl6lv7p]

It sucks how the shader effects found on the Xbox games were often missing on the PC release. I particularly like how clean the effects were on 6th-7th gen console games, even if they were hacky and not physically accurate. The bump mapping on Niobe's coat still looks good to this day.

[@slickdaddy4001]

Love this game and also Path of Neo. Would love to see a remaster of these games. The GameCube was the best version of the three

[@HansLollo]

There's a reason this game was called "Enter the Lachwitz" in one of the most popular german PC hardware forums.

[@NuDimon]

If the CPU has Hyper Threading, it might be smart to disable that for some of the earlier 2000 games. I used AMD in this era so idk how much it matters. I just recall how messed up some games were when I got my first dual core CPU. 🙃

[@poodlemeister22314]

I remember Saints Row 2 had that problem where the speed of the game was tied to CPU core clock...which is hilarious, making it feel like you were zooming around on modern machine's

[@mariodelrio2387]

@@poodlemeister22314 damn, saints row 2?

[@Winverd]

@@poodlemeister22314 Yeah, the your cpu speed had to match the xbox 360's 3.2 GHz or else character models and all other geometry would de-sync.

[@Raivo_K]

The same goes for AMD's SMT (HT analogue). Having SMT enabled for example can cause scores to tank on 3DMark05 and 06. My old 2500K that lacked HT was actually faster on 05/06 than my 3800X despite AMD having 4 times the amount of threads.

[@dmer-zy3rb]

@@Winverd limiting the game to 30 fps should fix it? gog implemented that on their release of saints row 2

[@backslashio]

Imagine buying this game on PC at release and not having the resources to actually apply the patch that's required to make the game work!

[@Fuuntag]

So when can we expect Path Of Neo? Genuinely did some impressive stuff on the PlayStation 2. Interestingly Shiny or Atari (not sure who it was presented to) even won some awards for its bump mapping and normal mapping that it managed to do on the device, as well as what I think were genuine specular highlights.

[@LakesideAmusementPro]

Path of Neo is amazing. It dumps all over Enter the Matrix. It definitely pushed the PS2 past its limits in a lot sections. The Burly Brawl level was amazing because the amount of character models on screen at once is massive but it really strained the console. I played the Xbox verison too and it seemed to have more frame rate troubles than the PS2 version did. The Burly Brawl was a bit smoother but controls on the Xbox version are pretty bad and hurts the experience.

[@Fuuntag]

@@LakesideAmusementPro Path of Neo and hitman blood money did some amazing crowd things on the PlayStation 2, in fact in the New Orleans level all the normal mapped NPCs are actually generated via a particle system, would be great to hear digital foundry talk about this as well!!

[@LakesideAmusementPro]

@@Fuuntag Agreed! Ubisoft even did some great stuff with the PS2 version of Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. It doesn’t look near as good as the Xbox Version but looks excellent for a PS2 title.

[@CharlesVanNoland]

They must've been issuing individual draw calls per triangle if it performs that horribly on that hardware. That's the only thing I can think of as a 25+ year graphics programmer.

[@kamranki]

I have never laughed so hard in my life! Thanks for making my day guys! Stay blessed.

[@photonboy999]

*square wheels on PC fix* I did fix this. I believe I had to set "LOD" to 0 in the config file. I think "LOD" here stands for "Lower overall detail" maybe. So "1" means lower detail and 0 means lower detail is not enabled? Maybe the game doesn't recognize newer hardware so defaults to LOWER detail, thus setting LOD to "1" ? Anyway, between this and the widescreen fix the game works great. I can't remember if I did much else.

[@kcmsterpce]

I remember the square wheels... and I also remember the mansion level where you fight the vampire dudes looked AMAZING. It was like a HUGE difference. Always felt that they polished that level for PC, then released the game before they polished the rest of it.

[@charoleawood]

I just see Homer Simpson, munchin on his chips, singing the lyrics to a tune that nobody thinks of as having lyrics, WW3 happening around him...

[@Nolasco.]

Love this video, more of this please, it was really fun to watch and listen to the gameplay, funny as hell too 😁👍 Thanks boys 💕

[@anshukandulna1844]

When they first said W Buffer, I thought "is this a technical term I'm not getting?".

[@RoninXRP]

Soo much nostalgia on this one. Played this game a ton as a kid on gamecube.

[@Babelfish112]

We never really got another game with good martial arts hand-to-hand combat until Sleeping Dogs. Maybe you could argue Stranglehold or whatever that old game was with the female protagonist that was inspired by Ghost in the Shell. Hopefully Sifu delivers on that promise!

[@DisasterMillennial]

I've seen screenshots of the square wheels but seeing them in motion is a whole new experience. holy shit

[@PyroSeeker]

This video would have been a lot less frustrating and more enjoyable to watch had Alex just toggled his directional arrow at the top back on...

[@jackjack121]

Bro, square wheels? I can't...

[@apratim987]

:D Lost it when the walls didn't render and the "tech difficulties" music hit, hilarious! 30:52

[@danisaksson3214]

I played this a lot as a kid, but man, even then I still laughed at the poor quality about as much as I enjoyed the effects. The gameplay wasn't... the best Anybody else had fun in the timed escape section where exclusives only go off as you pass them, giving you an eternal onslaught of agents to fight to the death of you decide to just stop running?

[@christofferthorsen3821]

You guys need to do a retrospective of MGS3! I would love to see that, what pros and cons the new engine brought compared to MGS2 etc! Love your content and the work you guys put into this!

[@SimonBuchanNz]

I would never guess that w-buffer was a slow mo effect. I would assume it's a z-buffer alternative, using the 4th W coordinate in hardware 3d coordinates. But that's generally just set to 1, then later divided by the z coordinate to get the perspective effect, so it would only be useful as another z buffer in software, which makes no sense. Ok the other hand, the "culling error" they were seeing on that one level was a pretty clear inverted z-test, so further away things were drawn in front of closer things... But only for level geometry, not objects? Weird.

[@SimonBuchanNz]

I kind of messed up the description of how the w coordinate works, don't sue me.

[@disco7379]

I thought this game was graphically incredible playing it as an 8 year old, way too hard for me I couldn’t get past the post office level.

[@drifteraka]

Fantastic format lads 100% you need to make a series of these. Brilliant!! 👌🏼

[@MrFooFighter13]

How did that get released?! Those wheels are incredible.

[@BoyProdigyBaby]

It wasnt that bad as they show it here.

[@pacmanweeee]

The wheels were much harder to see when these games were new. A lot of people played on crts (mostly small ones) with overscan on blurry composite cables farther away from the screen.

[@qwertzy121212]

@@pacmanweeee not on PC, they didn't and personally, I was always seated no more than 2 feet away from my TV anyway VGA into a 15" CRT from a few feet away and these blatant issues are perfectly visible-- I know because that's how I'm watching this video

[@pacmanweeee]

@@qwertzy121212 I’ll be honest, I just wasn’t into pc gaming back then so maybe there are more people who played this then I thought, but most people I knew played on console in a living room maybe they’d be 2-3 feet if it was in a bedroom.

[@gbrading]

I genuinely had no idea Enter the Matrix was THIS bad on PC. My god. This came out the same year as Max Payne 2, and that game still looks decent today (and the bullet time is WAY better).

[@VergilHiltsLT]

Yeah, it's eye-popping beauty, isn't it?

[@MoonSarito]

I loved the video, would love other reviews of bad ports like the first version of Resident Evil 4 for PC.