XIII

The Good
XIII's graphic novel look is brilliant. It looks beautiful (though a generation or two behind other shooters released around the same time) and the game play's smooth as one could ask for. The first 15 minutes met the high expectations I had set for the game...

The Bad
...but soon after I found that my hopes were MUCH too high. When the developer's of XIII announced that it would play like a comic book, nerds across the nation began salivating over what looked to be the ultimate "Hybrid of Nerdities." But soon after it's release fan's realized that by "comic book structure," the developers meant a linear bore of a traditional shooter, stuffed with panel intro's and outro's, and the irritating sound effect text's (a la batman) to give it a comic books feel. The gameplay is average, offering nothing extraordinary. I would like to know how a developer can make a FPS that has more in common Blake Stone than modern shooters of the time, and expect it to blow the mind's of gamers around the world. The story begins with a cool introduction to the world of Agent XIII, who seems to have forgotten everything about his previous life. Had the game kept the intriguing story as it's foremost concentration, I would have enjoyed it much more; but alas, it seems that shooting soldier after soldier with an M-16 is the proper way to regain one's identity. Pshh. The game doesn't even include region sensitive damage on an enemy besides the head. Pass this one up; the occasional flash back might have been cool if XIII delivered a story that pulled you in through the game play, but an intelligent game like Farcry or Doom III is a better way to spend your money.

The Bottom Line
Shoot, shoot, bang, kill, flashback, story information, shoot shoot shoot, bang, kill, blood, text, panels, end game.

The Good
I didn't even know this game was released until recently. According to Mobygames, it was released in the beginning of October? I found that very strange, since this game was hyped to Hell and back during developement, and yet when it was finally released I heard absolutely nothing about it. That really led me to believe that the game was a huge flop. And I read some rather unsettling reviews on top of that, and a lot of people complained about terrible stealth missions. Oh, and the lack of a savegame feature...ugh. Everything I heard of this game just made me think more and more that it wasn't worth it. But thanks to online game trading sites, I managed to get ahold of a copy quite easily, and I must say that after finishing the game, I'm just astounded that this game isn't getting more attention.

This is the first cell-shaded game I've played, and boy did they take the time to make it absolutely perfect. The comic book graphics, the panels that appear on-screen, the three-panel still shot when you kill someone from a distance, in particular, is just wonderful. I've never been a big comic book fan, but I just love the style in this game. In almost any part of the game, were you to take a screenshot, you may not be able to tell whether it was in-game or part of an actual rendered comic book. Bravo, Ubi Soft!

XIII is a first person shooter. Despite its comic book style, it's still just a first person shooter, but it doesn't fail there at all, either. Plenty of guns to keep you occupied, head-shots (almost always) are instant-kills, walking makes you quiet, and lots of vents to crawl through. You sometimes take on enemies one at a time, sometimes you take down fifteen at a time. Lots of things you hide behind, and you can even use parts of the environment (knives, chairs, bottles) to aid you in combat. If you're not a first-person shooter fan, the game probably won't entertain you, but if you are a FPS fan, this game is great.

Also for use in your arsenal is a grappling hook, which, unlike many other games, works wonderfully. You can't use it anywhere, and in fact, it's only used in key parts of the game, but it works. You might have to use it to swing to a ledge, and you'll find that it works great. You won't be surprised by some strange force of physics that throw you around like a rag doll in the wind. Using it to sneak down to some bad guys talking about their evil plans was great fun.

There are about thirty-five levels in all. The levels are varied enough, although the sequence of advancing through each level doesn't change much. Outdoor areas tend to lead you through the environment, up hills, through swaps, accross snowy fields, etc. Indoor areas lead you through vents, computer rooms, smashing windows. What I mean is, you pretty much know what you're going to be doing in any level based on what kind of environment you find yourself in. Call this a good or bad thing, if you want.

The storyline is also intriguing. The whole "d00d I can't remember who I am!" thing has been done to death, but thankfully the story isn't really about that, so much as it is about the "Number" guys and their evil plots. Learning about yourself and regaining what little of your memory you can was a lot better when it wasn't the main focus of the plot. XIII is one of the few first-person shooters I've played lately which really had me glued to my seat. I didn't beat this game just to beat it, I beat it because I wanted to see the entire story.

It helped that the game isn't very hard at all. Bosses are tougher than normal guys, but not THAT much tougher. You won't spend an hour trying to beat a certain spot. At least, I didn't. I found the game to be very easy, and I liked it that way. I'm tired of realistic "die in one or two hits" FPSs, just because they make you exercize the quicksave/quickload buttons until your fingers bleed. No, this game isn't realistic, it's a run-and-gun game that's loads of fun to play.

I heard a lot of people complaining about the stealth missions. I can only think of one level in which took me more than three tries to beat because of the stealth elements. Seriously, I don't get what the big deal is. Yeah, if you want to just run in and kill everything, then you're probably going to really suck at the stealth missions...but heck, you don't even really need to be that stealthy. All you have to do is knock out the guards before they can reach an alarm, or hide the bodies well enough that a passing guard won't find it. I loved the stealth missions. They were easy, they were exciting, at times very tense. Bring on more stealth missions like these!

The Bad
The only thing I really didn't like about this game was the voice acting. Everybody does a fine job except for David Duchovny. I don't know why they spent the money to hire the guy to do the voice acting, considering he has about a total of ten lines in the entire game that aren't "Oh" or "Unf!" or "Who am I?"

Also another thing that annoys me is that there is no lip-syncing. When a character talks, it looks like they're chewing some bubble gum.

The Bottom Line
XIII is one of the best first-person shooters out there. The storyline is great, the graphics are breathtaking, and the style is everything it's hyped up to be. Don't believe the poots that found the stealth missions too hard, because honestly, they're not hard at all.

Aside from Duchovny's voice acting ability and the "bubble-gum chewing" lip-syncing, I find this game almost flawless.

The Good
Firstly, the cell-shaded graphics are excellent, and are what will undoubtedly draw most people to the game. Rather than being cartoony (like The Wind Waker), XIII - read 'thirteen' - actually looks and feels like a real graphic novel. It's a 3D comic and it works brilliantly. Hitting an enemy with a head-shot spawns a box-out window showing some white-bordered stills of the bullet finding its target which, although getting repetitive after a while, are hugely satisfying. Ubi Soft have tried hard to make the graphics mean more to the game than just eye-candy, though; explosions and enemy footsteps are displayed as a Batman-style 'Boom!' or 'tap-tap-tap...', meaning that the player can visually follow enemies that are obscured by buildings, etc, which is a useful feature.

The story takes amnesiac Steve Rowland across the US in an attempt to unravel a conspiracy surrounding an assassinated president. Locations are always interesting and varied (of particular note is the clifftop mansion towards the end of the game with beautiful ocean view) and the mix of stealthy, weaponless and blast 'em missions is good.

For GameCube owners coming to XIII after a spell away from the FPS genre, an improvement in enemy AI is immediately noticeable. Soldiers hide around corners, wait in ambush behind crates and inside doorways and actually notice (most of the time) that their partners have been taken out right in front of them. No more will the TimeSplitters2 strategy of popping your head round the corner and then waiting for baddies to stumble blindly into your line of fire bring you success.

Special mention must also be made of the game's ending of which, of course, I can say little here, other than than certain graphical effects are very cool indeed. Oh, and that it's playable!

The Bad
On the negative side, some may find that XIII's story is a little too complicated. The plot is unveiled in spurts and starts with cut scenes at the end of some levels, leaving those without a good memory for character's names in the dark. There's no way to replay these cut scenes, even after finishing the game, which is a shame as they are certainly worth a repeat viewing. It is possible to watch a 2D comic style presentation of the story, but in contrast to the cut-scenes this serves to shed very little light on the conspiracy and the identity of Steve Rowland.

What's worse is that it isn't possible to replay your favourite levels without resorting to saving a new game after each. This is particularly frustrating given that there are hidden 'secret documents' to collect throughout the game - if you miss one, there's no opportunity to go back for it. Ubi Soft should have looked back to Goldeneye 007 for a lesson in how to manage this properly.

Also - and when will developers learn - why are the controls so odd? For some reason, 'B' is secondary fire, 'A' is action and 'R' and 'Z' are primary fire and crouch respectively. This will catch players out even after several hours of play. Surely primary and secondary fire should be 'R' and 'Z'! And why not give us the option to change it? Streetfighter II, back in the 16-bit era, gave us this freedom!

Ultimately, though, what lets this game down is just how unextraordinary it is. Sure, the graphics are superb, but once you see through them you'll realise how little it brings to the FPS table, borrowing heavily from Deus Ex and the other games by Rare and Free Radical Design that I mention above.

The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that XIII is a supremely enjoyable game with superb graphics, excellent sound effects and acting (including an underused David Duchovny, a nice choice for a conspiracy game). Just don't expect it to add anything new to your collection. FPS starved GameCube owners should definitely look into it.