XIII

First off, I couldn't even properly play this game without the All-in-One Patch/XIII+ mod. I remember trying to play XIII way back in the day and not having luck, either, so it's actually impressive that I can get it running on modern hardware when I was unable to even on the proper hardware in its release window. So, on to the game. It's firmly 'meh' in my opinion. Given that I was surprised this came out in 2003 and I had played it a few years later, I had to go back and look to see what other FPS games were out surrounding its release time frame. Soldier of Fortune was a few years earlier, Red Faction was, too. Postal 2 came out the same year and Far Cry 1 came out like 4-5 months after. All of these are much better games, in my opinion. So, XIII is just okay to me. It nailed the art style, but everything else after playing for a couple of hours is rather boring to me. Maybe if you are more into spy thrillers, this will be up your alley. I'm glad GoG was giving it away for free.

XIII is a conspiracy thriller action game, where you play as an agent named XIII who lost his memory. The unique feature of this game is the cel-shaded, comicbook-style graphics like Borderlands, but with lower quality obviously. The cutscenes are also comic-like, using panels and sound effects mostly seen in comics. The reason behind this artistic choice is because the game is an adaptation of a Belgian comic series. XIII stars X-Files actor David Duchovny as the lead character, and also has the rapper Eve and '60s Batman Adam West as supporting characters. XIII combines action-packed combat with some stealth elements, where you can choose to knock out enemies silently instead of fighting them in several levels. You'll also have access to numerous weapons and spy gear. Stealth is kinda hard if you don't have the Silent Walk skill, and you will probably only get that around halfway through the game, if you try to do stealth often. The gameplay feels comparable to Half-Life in my opinion, just more spy-themed and less sci-fi. My biggest problem with XIII is the horrible save system. It uses checkpoints, and while it might not seem so bad, it gets really annoying when you fail stealth or got killed in combat and had to redo quite some lengthy sections of the game. There is also no autosave, so if your game crashed or anything your latest save would be the checkpoint during your last manual save. You might wanna resort to console commands to skip levels if that happens. In my opinion XIII is a quite interesting, early '00s FPS with a unique artstyle and pretty fun gameplay, definitely worth a try. Bonus points if you're a fan of those 3 celebrity voice actors. The game sadly ends in a cliffhanger, and it has been almost 2 decades without a sequel, and we only got a remake that's even using the same voice lines.

I wanted to play this since it came out and now by chance I saw it on sale. Thanks to Good4Games2019's advice the game runs smooth, recommended to do so. The game is smooth, the graphics are very good for it's time and I think they hold up well. I might be biased on the graphics I still think The Last Ninja on C64 looks great. The gameplay is quite allright nothing special but it isn't underwhelming. Good story, lots of action and it's a steal at €1.49.

One of the best story-based fps in my early times. It's like watching for the first time James Bond movie, but it is the game :D Must-play recommendation.

Even after 21 years old, this game still blows my mind, with comic style graphics and storytelling, gripping story and very intense missions. I wish Ubisoft had made it's sequel.