XIII

"A little old, a little new"

You are......well, you can't remember who you are. All that happens is, you wake up, washed up on a beach, and find that the symbol "XIII" (13 in Roman numerals) is tattooed on your chest. After waking up, a life guard comes to look at you and rushes you inside the beach safehouse. Though you might not remember it, the government is hunting you, they think you murdered the President. Confused yet? Many other challenges are ahead of you XIII, find out what this conspiracy is, better yet, who you are.

Graphics:10/10

Now, c'mon, this is the cream of the crop. The game is based off of a popular French comic book series, and the game is Cel Shaded, very different for a First Person shooter, its just so pretty to look at, when you shoot barrels an action Bubble pops up "BOOM!" or "BAM!". It's just so beautiful....see it for yourself.

Sound:8/10

Lets start with voice acting, superb, outstanding, great!!! Except for XIII's voice, played by David Duchovny. His voice is really...bland to listen to, if not irritating. Sure, he sound's confused, but...even in situations where he shouldn't be...so otherwise, voice acting is nice. Guns are also nice, resembles just regular gunfire sounds, nothing special...oh and let me warn you, this game has a LOT of language (F word used twice).

Controls:6/10

A little hard to get used to, especially when using gadgets to grapple, then quickly trying to change to a weapon to open fire upon enemies. You can get used to it, and customize your controls, but even when I customize, then I turn off the game, and come back later, there were weird occurrences where the controls reset themselves to the defaults (and if I remember correctly, there is a save feature). Otherwise, give the controls time to master. But the same old movement controls are in place as many other First Person Shooters have.

Fun Factor:6/10

Well, the game has one great quality, the graphics. Nothing really new was introduced to the FPS genre in this game. Let me tell you about the game a little. As stated in the first paragraph, you play a guy who lost his memory, and there's this whole conspiracy (I won't spoil it all) but each person involved in the conspiracy has a number tattooed on them (whom you shall eventually meet in the game). I won't spoil how many, or who they are, because it takes away from the fun. Single player is great, while it lasts unfortunately...I beat the game in 3 days, which is way too quick for a game. Even though single player is a BLAST and will keep you guessing and thinking, it ended too quickly. Multiplayer is fun, for a while, standard modes in play, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and a few other modes, which I will not spoil either, because they are mad fun with some buddies. So overall, it's a great experience while it lasts. That's unfortunately why it gets a lower score for me. Don't get it solely for Multiplayer though, get it for the Single Player if you must. Multiplayer is entertaining for SOME time. Not as much as other games.

Buy or Rent?
Demo's are available, Multiplayer and Single Player. Try them out, and if you're interested enough, go get it. At its current price, just 19.99, it's really a steal for such a great game.

I give XIII a 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/05/04