XIII

I don't recall hearing about XIII before but I downloaded it as the graphics looked interesting and the reviews were pretty praising. Overall I loved it. The comic book visuals look great and mean that the game hasn't aged. I have not played an FPS (or other game for that matter) that matches the comic book style as well as this. Features such as the close-up frames for great shots and the "tap tap tap" visuals to indicate enemy movements are really nice touches and add a lot to the feel of the game. There are a lot of levels, some requiring stealth, some gung-ho action and some a combination of both. The levels are pretty linear and do suffer a bit from the invisible wall syndrome but one can get over this. There are the occasional "boss" battles which I generally hate in these games. Aside from the last one, they weren't too tricky and were achieveable either first go or soon after. One thing that did annoy me a little, for a PC game is the checkpoint save process. Save checkpoints often seemed to happen when you immediately need to do something tedious like gather weapons or navigate through a load of corridoors. This is my main gripe with this game and is not major compared to how thoroughly I enjoyed tha game. It is just frustrating when you keep triggering an alert and have to walk over this, climb that, get that for the 10th time. Overall a very pleasing style and presentation, with nice comic book touches (seems to match the original comic I have since looked up). The graphics have not dated because of this. Sound is, on the whole, good. Gameplay is pretty satisfying and there is a plot to try and follow too. Not felt to write anything on GOG before (even though have quite a few games now) but this was a gem of a find....thanks GOG. Note: Online multiplayer option via Ubisoft no longer seem available but LAN and bot mods are.

I always wanted to get this when it first came out but since I was a broke high schooler I never got the chance. When I saw this here it was an instant buy. The cel-shaded graphics have held up beautifully and the use of different environment objects as weapons keeps the game play fresh. Like many others have said the comic book look is excellent and works with the story. But my absolute favorite aspect is the soundtrack. Funky fresh tunes mesh well with the action and plot. My only complaints are that some levels can be a bit short and there is not much replay value. Other than that it is a great game that holds up today even with a market flooded with shooters. Also David Duchovny and Adam West ;)

This is a game I was very excited to see on GOG and I bought it as soon as I saw it. I can't wait to play it again and I owe GOG a big thanks for putting it up here. I owned XIII on xbox back in the day and even though it was released in 2003 It almost hasn't dated at all. A big reason for this is because it's graphics are 100% cell shaded. In other words it's graphics are done in comic book style which means it looks impressive and the graphics look fresh even today. At the time game developers were just starting to get into cell shaded games (Jet Set Radio Future was the other big cell shaded game back then), but they seemed to disappear for a long time up until now. Modern games like 'Borderlands' are bringing cell shading back and XIII still looks impressive next to them. When XIII begins you wake up on a beach with a bad case of amnesia and its up to you to put the pieces of your life back together, like a comic book Jason Bourne. The story is interesting although it does lag a little toward the middle. The gameplay is just plain fun. Stylish kills are rewarded with comic book exclamations that remind you of an old episode of batman. The weapons and gunplay are extremely satisfying. To give you an idea just picture yourself blowing away bad guys with a comic book M16 or even a .357 Magnum and seeing the resulting cartoon splat of blood. XIII isn't perfect. The big criticism of the game when it was released was the voice acting, and I agree with that, sort of. Actually the voice acting for the most part is great. 'Adam West' (the original batman) is funny and entertaining and Hip Hop star 'Eve' did a great job with her character. The problem was 'David Duchovny'. Yes, that's Moulder from 'X-files'. He has since become infamous as maybe the worst voice actor in video games...ever. He does the voice for the title character (agent XIII). I've played two games with David Duchovney voicing the main character (Area 51 was the other game), and to be honest, it's comical, in fact I find it so funny that it actually adds to the game for me. He sounds like someone who just took a mixture of Prozac and Valium (and that's during the exciting parts). The xbox version of XIII had really strong multiplayer value. There were deathmatch modes as well as bomb modes (ala counterstrike) and I remember getting many hours of replay value just playing deathmatch bot-matches. I hope they have kept that option in the pc version. If anyone wants to get into the multiplayer side im sure there will be many more players now that gog has picked up XIII. I hope the online community grows now because multiplayer was always great in this game (better than most current games. I found the Borderlands multiplayer to be a bit of a yawn compared to XIII....yeah okay the two games are very different but they are both cell shaded FPS games so close enough!) Lastly just from a value point of view this game is almost a must have if you belong to gog (and no im not associated with gog in any way that's just my opinion). $5.99 for a game like XIII is awesome. For those of you that get into it and discover how good the multiplayer can be, there is potentially months of solid gameplay in this title. For those of you who buy XIII it'll be the best six bucks you've spent in a while. A solid 4 out of 5 stars. I took One star away for David Duchovny's voice acting, but I'm almost tempted to give him a consolation star for comic value....his retarded, almost brain-dead delivery makes me laugh every time...I know that calling David Duchovny a retard is actually an insult to retarded people..no offense intended.

There's not much to say about this title other than the fact that I love everything about it. The cell shaded aesthetic, the atmosphere, the music, the level design, the gameplay, the comic book concept adapted from the original source material, and of course the fact that this is available completely drm free in its latest version with full language support for non-native english speakers, made this a completely easy recommendation for me. Thank you GOG for putting this up for sale again, and in my native tongue (spanish). One of my favorite games of all time, a unique storyline that begins with a series of cliches and one that thankfully develops into a more meaningful and complex one at that. Gameplay and level design that its as visceral as it is easy to understand, but hard to master, and fluent yet, "deep" level design with an added weapon variety depending on the mission you choose to play, make this a game that never gets to feel repetitive. I have written, frankly, I don't know how many reviews for this game in multiple other sites, and I have played this game so many times that I've stopped counting, it is just an excellent experience that has withstanded the test of time. A gift really... Thanks GOG.

It's a fairly entertaining shooter, but the usual caveat with classics that the games tend to age poorly (and not just in the graphics department) still applies in this case. The controls and gunplay are not quite streamlined, the game also relies too heavily on its dodgy stealth system in a number of mandatory stealth missions. The game's artstyle helped XIII feel a little less dated than it might have otherwise. I had some technical difficulties to overcome, mainly with absurdly low framerate (fixed by a fan patch). The plot could do without a cliffhanger ending, too. The star voiceactor - David Duchovny as the protagonist - is rather underutilized.