The Animatrix Comes the X-Box Live

Warner Bros. has put up the nine short episodes from the Animatrix on X-Box Live. If you purchased the HD-DVD version of the Matrix Trilogy, then the downloads are free; otherwise, it’s going to cost you 160 Microsoft Points per episode ($2). For a limited time, you can download “The Second Renaissance: Part 1″ for free, which explains how the machines took over. The rest of the episodes are standalone stories.

In some ways, the Animatrix was almost better than the actual trilogy. It took that world and expanded on it, explaining more of how this future came to pass. However, The Second Renaissance Parts 1 and 2 are probably the best episodes of the animated shorts, followed closely by Flight of the Osiris (shown above). If not worth a download, then it’s definitely worth a rental sometime.