Posted on: February 25, 2020

lubwak

Games: 1167 Reviews: 7

Poor execution, does not value your time

The game looks interesting and the comic style is what makes this game attractive (although the faces that all look the same, and weird at that (all men with strange lips) ) . However, as it is basically a shooter, it falls flat - there is something really off with aiming. I can shoot better by just moving sideways rather than aiming with the mouse, and I have experience with a lot of shooters. The efficiency and accuracy of weapons is really strange too. Enemies are really bullet spongy against most of the arsenal. The best thing to do is to just try headshots all the time to reduce the frustration. The dialogues are rather infantile and maybee it wouldn't be so noticeble, if the voice acting were not so infantile too (it is not just bad - there is also something weird about how the dialogues are read - it sounds very amateurish, as if they took some random guys from a table RPG session). What is the worst thing is the saving system, of course. You can only save after you reach an arbitrary checkpoint and even then there are sometimes situations, when you have to replay the whole level again, if you forget to save manually. The game DOES not save progress on its own. I have had to replay the same level (I play on higher difficulty) several times just because something random, which got mee killed, happened at the end. Overall, I expected much much more of this game. It is a huge disappointment.

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Posted on: February 14, 2022

seanwood7777

Verified owner

Games: 584 Reviews: 95

Desperately Needs a Sequel

As opposed to a half-assed, buggy, hollow remake. I consider XIII to be a cousin of sorts, to the likes of Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Time Splitters, etc. Neat little cel-shaded + comic book stylized objective/level based FPS. The gameplay isn't always the smoothest (some funky stealth sections, checkpoints AKA no quick saving, lack of checkpoints at times) but other than that, still a good game. Would be rad if they made a sequel, not just because of the cliff hanger ending, but because more XIII (and done better) would be neato. I first played this on the Gamecube eons ago, back when it was given away for free at a GameCrazy for some reason (probably for buying a bunch of used games or something) Didn't know what to expect before playing it, then I eventually ended up loving most of it. Definitely get this, and *DO NOT* touch the GARBAGE remake. Unless they end up pulling a No Man's Sky or something and end up infinitely improving it.

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Posted on: April 5, 2011

emnii

Verified owner

Games: 1124 Reviews: 1

Cel-shaded Face Stabbing

I just finished XIII. It's an old, cel-shaded first person shooter based on a Franco-Belgian comic book of the same name. It's a spy game, more along the lines of Jason Bourne than James Bond and it was totally fucking awesome! This is a spy game done right. You plant bugs, blow stuff up, sneak around, stab people in the eye with bottles, and save the president. It has a grappling hook. If your spy game doesn't have a grappling hook, it doesn't count. Speaking of stabbing people in the eye with bottles, improvised weapons are done fantastically well in this game. There's a relatively limited number of items that can be used as weapons, but they're available when they're necessary, and usually hanging around somewhere when they're not. It is exceptionally satisfying to throw a shard of glass into someone's face for a stealth kill. Also used to great effect in this game, throwing knives. I guess if I had to choose one thing, XIII does stabbing people in the face the best. My only complaints are that it's a little short, and the cel-shading led to some interesting artifacts. The game moves along at a pretty fast pace, but the levels never feel too short or too long. The locales are varied and you spend enough time in each area to enjoy it without overstaying your welcome. The cel-shading is used very well in the game, but it resulted in some abnormally thick black lines in unusual places, like the corners of the nostrils, or around the rims of eyeglasses. The nose thing is a little distracting in in-game cutscenes, but the eyeglasses thing really sucks. Characters wearing eyeglasses look like they're wearing some kind of sci-fi goggles. These effects, however, may be a result of eight years of hardware progress, or a variation in how my graphics card presents the game. I've seen screenshots of the game from other people who do not have the same weird artifacts. I'm really glad I picked this up. It is totally worth the price if you're into stabbing people in the face.

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Posted on: May 11, 2020

phase2

Verified owner

Games: 567 Reviews: 1

Solid story, dated gameplay

Main technical issues in the unpatched version: 1. A clean install of the GOG version doesn't let you use 1080p. 2. The mouse was completely broken in the main menu, it felt like there's a huge deadzone on both axes before any movement is registered. Feels absolutely terrible. Solution: Download the latest unofficial patch (1.4.2.1 as of my review) to fix the mouse movement and get 1080p support. -> https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/XIII About the game itself: I played the demo back in 2000 and loved it, sometime later a friend lent me his copy and I played the full game. So I was going into this with some nostalgia. I've replayed it in May 2020 and I have to say this game hasn't aged that well, mostly due to its game mechanics. The main factors for me are the bad gunplay, frustrating stealth mechanics and to some extent the level design. Savegames didn't work for me (you can save, but you can't load them), therefore you have to rely on the checkpoint system. So when you die, you usually get set back to a checkpoint that's way too far back and often makes you replay annoying parts of the level, which can really test your patience. If you didn't play XIII back then, you might want to wait for the remake and see how that turns out. I'm definitely not saying it's a bad game, it's just that the gameplay is a bit lacking from today's perspective.

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Posted on: December 6, 2019

VolcanicLightnin

Verified owner

Games: 194 Reviews: 6

Stylish (if janky) Franco-Belgian FPS

XIII is a game that exudes coolness with its cel-shaded graphics and '60s spy movie soundtrack, but is unfortunately let down by its simplistic and dated gameplay. If you're looking for something on-par with No One Lives Forever, then XIII will disappoint you. The levels in XIII revolve around combat and stealth, but neither aspect feels particularly well-developed. Like many other FPSes from the time, guns are completely inaccurate in the player's hands yet have aimbot accuracy in the enemies' hands. Location-based damage is non-existent save for one-hit sniper rifle/crossbow headshots. Combine this with the poor animations and sound effects and you've got a game where nearly every gun feels like the Klobb from Goldeneye. The poor combat could've been saved if the stealth was any good (like Deus Ex), but unfortunately the stealth levels are even worse than the run-and-gun levels. There are no darkness, sound, or peeking mechanics in place, so stealth boils down to waiting behind corners for minutes at a time while watching the visible "Tap" comic SFX through walls. Enemies range from being blind from five feet away to spotting you across the map. Should you get caught, you'll wind up playing minutes of the same levels and seeing the same unskippable cutscenes over and over due to the awful checkpoint placements. Despite these faults, I still recommend purchasing XIII if only to preserve it in your account when the rights eventually expire again. The janky gameplay is entirely in service to the storyline, which is presented in stylish comic fashion with top-notch voice acting by David Duchovny and the late, great Adam West. The setpieces are also really fun and memorable in contrast to the drab, muddy environments in today's AAA shooters. Grab yourself a copy of XIII and head over to PCGamingWiki to get it running in widescreen with the proper FOV. Don't forget to save after every level, either, as there doesn't seem to be any autosave feature.

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