It's one thing to license a movie franchise and build a videogame around it. It happens all the time -- in the past year alone, we've seen games based on Harry Potter, Spider-Man, The Lord of the Rings, Minority Report, Star Wars: Episode II and countless others. Often, these games do little more than echo the plot of the film or try to slap a fresh coat of paint on a familiar style of gameplay, and rarely have any effect on the actual movie franchise.

It's something entirely different, however, when the creators of a blockbuster film get directly involved in the game, writing the actual story and shooting original footage to complement their films. That's exactly what directors Andy and Larry Wachowski are doing, however, working on their Matrix sequels while simultaneously working with Shiny Entertainment to develop Enter The Matrix, the new videogame due out this May.

During the recent Enter The Matrix premiere party in Hollywood, we had a chance to speak with Shiny CEO Dave Perry about their upcoming game. Along the way, he told us how this whole project got started, what it's been like working with the Wachowskis, and he even spilled some new details on the upcoming game.

Welcome To the Real World

Although Shiny has been working on Enter The Matrix since early 2001, the game technically started development long before that. "The Wachowskis already knew what they wanted to do," explains Perry. "When we actually put pen to paper, they had already written the script, so we've put in two real years of work. It wasn't like 'OK, let's get started' -- we were making stuff right away."

The enigmatic directors also had very clear ideas on how they wanted the game to play out. "They basically had an arc for the story," Perry continues, "they knew exactly how it would all fit together; the beginning, the middle and the end. They had it down to the point where they would say 'You're in this situation and head for the front door, but the front door is sealed and play starts closing in on you.' It's interesting -- they seem to have watched every movie that's ever been made, and they remember every scene, so they quote everything in scenes from other movies. They definitely knew what they wanted."

However, don't think Shiny is just hired help doing the grunt work to carry out the Wachowskis' vision. "We're still the game guys," says Perry. "Ultimately, it's our job to make sure that the rules of normal gameplay exist. It's very much a movie experienced as a game, but we've got to make sure that you'll be able to kick some major ass in the game."

Luckily for Shiny, the Wachowskis are gamers themselves. "If you were to deal with directors that had no idea of what games are, it would have been a big long conversation every time, trying to explain how people control characters and all that kind of stuff," explains Perry. "But they play tons of games. They have an Xbox and a PlayStation 2 I saw Larry (Wachowski) just recently and he said 'I've been playing Splinter Cell and I bought this and I bought that.' My point is that the conversations were so easy. When we raise a real gameplay issue, they understand. It was painless."

Jacking In

One of the biggest challenges Shiny has encountered while developing Enter The Matrix is handling the sheer scope of the game. Not content to build a game around one particular genre, the Wachowskis envisioned a game that shifted gears regularly. "They basically wanted everything," says Perry. "We wanted full exploration, fighting, shooting, driving, flying and hacking, all in one game. Getting your head around it, when you realize that it's all gotta look cool, it was a monster."

Guns. Lots of guns.
To make sure they were on the right track, Shiny conducted some focus tests asking gamers what they would want out of a Matrix game. "They came up with this huge laundry list," says Perry, "and we have absolutely everything on that list in this game. But the thing that I thought was fascinating was that nobody suggested that you'd have the story written by the directors, or you'd have new movie footage shot, because they know not to ask for that. They've been trained after all these years and all these games, 'well, no way that would happen.'"

Not everyone was a believer, however. According to Perry, there was one doubter who simply refused to buy in. "He said to us at the very end, 'the one thing that would sell it to me is if the Wachowskis put their name on the front of the box. If they do that, I'll believe it and I'd buy the game'. And so, we're doing that."