Gamers live out
the Matrix’s
next chapter

BELLEVUE, Wash. - Just my rotten luck: The first day I jacked into the Matrix was the very day that renegade Agents were taking over the world — and to top it off, there was a nasty flame virus going around. Freshly minted redpills like myself were on fire, running around all over the place.

It took only three minutes for the flames to turn me into a puddle of vaporized computer code.

My only consolation was that the producers of "The Matrix Online," the immersive role-playing game based on the "Matrix" movie series, were getting flamed as well.

"I don't want to die in the middle of this," senior producer Joe Ybarra said during a guided tour of The City. A couple of minutes later, Ybarra — or rather, his computer-generated character, CaptNemo — fell to the ground, dead.

Making its debut
To be fair, this was the last day of the beta test for "The Matrix Online," and the game masters added some special tricks for players who have been immersing themselves for up to eight months in the virtual world of The City. After ironing out the bugs, the game makes its official debut Tuesday — although those who pre-ordered the game get a head start this weekend.

Like other massively multiplayer online role-playing games, known as MMORPGs or MMOs for short, "The Matrix Online" lets visitors choose from a range of physical attributes, skills, clothes and possessions that define their online personas. If those characters survive, they become more and more adept, gain more play money and unravel more secrets of the game. And if they don't? Well, they can always jack in again.

The MMO world has gotten crowded of late, and jacking in isn't cheap: Players must first buy the PC software (sorry, Mac fans) for $49.99 and then subscribe to the game service for $14.99 a month.

But the companies behind the latest Matrix — including Sega, Warner Bros. and Monolith Productions, the Bellevue-based game development company where Ybarra works — are banking on the cool factor to distinguish them from the likes of "EverQuest" and "World of Warcraft."

The "Matrix Online" makers hope users will be attracted to the cachet that comes from doing wire-fu and hanging out at nightclubs rather than swinging swords and waving wands.

"We're a modern game," Ybarra said. "We're trying to be hip and fashionable. We're the Matrix."

Picking up the storyline
"Matrix Online" picks up the storyline of the film trilogy — and in fact, the game might help some filmgoers figure out the murky plot of the two latter movies.

Monolith / Warner Bros. A virtual-reality character in "Matrix Online" succumbs to the flame virus.

To recap: Machines have subjugated most of the world's human population as a bioenergy source, and keep them docile by feeding them an illusion known as the Matrix. There are some human holdouts who have awakened to the post-apocalyptic real world (by taking "the red pill" in the Matrix) and live in an underground refuge called Zion. Fighters venture out to mix it up with the machines, in the real world as well as in the virtual-reality Matrix.

Aided by Zion's freedom fighters, a messiah named Neo fights off a virtual-reality villain named Agent Smith and brings about a truce with the machines. In the process, Neo goes through real-world death ... or does he??

With the blessings of the Wachowski brothers, who conceived of the Matrix saga, comic-book creator Paul Chadwick has written a year's worth of "Matrix Online" scripts for developing the story arc from here. The game re-creates the gritty, Gothic city that's the focus of the Matrix films, right down to the subways, the teleporting phone booths and the dark-alley hangouts.

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