XIII

"A whole new FPS experience..."

The first time I laid my eyes on an advertisment for UbiSoft's 'upcoming' cel-shaded FPS - XIII, I was hooked. XIII, which is based on a popular French comic, turned out to be a decent shooter with excellent graphical quality.

GRAPHICS - 9
Realistic doesn't always mean best. XIII appeals to the human eye not because of 'realistic human skin textures' or 'ultra-realistic shadows', but with comic-like cel-shaded graphics which we all know and love from our good-old superhero comics. Though the graphics may contain minor glitches, like (sigh) clipping, and shadows being cast on the other side of surfaces, the graphical quality is superb, for it utilises a modified version of the Unreal warfare engine, which is perhaps a little too much power for a 'just a cel-shaded game'.

One of the things unique to this game is the utilisation of comic elements, like the little wordings which pop out when you shoot, or the 'tap tap' wording which appears when your enemies walk around, and the most interesting of all, boxes that appear around the screen (mostly above), highlighting interesting events and overall adding to the 'cool-factor' (especially when you get head shots with the crossbow).

SOUND - 7
The sounds should have been much better than it is. The gunshot and explosion sounds are mostly generic sounds which I have nothing to comment about. The music, however, is one thing I personally like. The 'quiet' music during the stealth missions, suddenly flowing into a louder 'exciting' music when you get spotted or during the action sequences, are just plain sweet.

The major downfall for the sounds is just plain unexpected. David Duchovny, the voice actor for our hero, XIII, seems bored. Even in the most intense of situations, he seems that he might fall asleep in the middle of a firefight. I really expected more from the voice acting crew.

CONTROLS - 7
Here we have the good old WASD keymap. Nothing much to comment about this, except that inventory and weapon scrolling is a big pain in the hind quarters.

GAMEPLAY - 8
When you're going all out and spraying bullets at everyone's faces, this game is at is best. The enemies are (sort of) intelligent, ducking for cover and hopping around trying to delay the inevitable. However, there are some points of the game where the developers overdone this, making this game more frustrating than it really is.

For some reason, the developers made this good shooter into another Splinter Cell wannabes. I for one feel that there are too many stealth missions for the developers' own good. Sure, looking at 'tap tap' symbols are fun the first few times round, but after that it gets a little tideous. There is also the fact that we can't wall peek, which is an essential feature in stealth gaming.

There is one particular feature which I like though - the ability to pick up 'everything' in the environment to use as a weapon. 'Everything' is perhaps too big a word, but I still like it.

STORY - 7
Ah. Conspiracy... We all love conspiracy. The game follows a winding plot, which propels the player into the depths of government secrets. Overall I found it quite interesting, but the ending was plain weak. You'll know why when you get there.

OVERALL - 7
XIII is overall a decent shooter with superb eye-candy, but the gameplay might get tedious and even frustrating at some parts of the game. I recommend this game to both casual gamers who enjoy shooters with stealth elements and especially to fans of No One Lives Forever 1 and 2. As for those waiting for an all-out shooter, here's a piece of advice: Wait for Half-Life 2.

PROS
- Cel-shaded graphics!
- Nicely made action sequences
- Mmm... Conspiracy...

CONS
- Boring voice-acting
- Too many stealth missions
- Length of game is questionable

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/15/04