XIII

When XIII came out back in the day, the critics gave lackluster reviews, but I didn't pay much attention to that, because to me the game was awesome. What XIII, a game based on a Belgian comic book provided, it provided in spades. It tells a great and engaging espionage and conspiracy story about an amnesiac man accused of killing the President of ya old US of A. The game is an unrelenting action fest taking you from NY to Appalachian Mountains, to a desert, to a submarine many feet below the surface. But what I liked about this game is, that it's a living, breathing comic. The graphics are done in a cell-shaded way and the game itself provides special effects like "TAP, TAP" for walking and "BLAM" for explosions to create that special feel. If that wasn't enough, the story is told through the cutscenes that look exactly like comic book panels. Unlike many shoot'em ups, the story of the game engages you just like the action itself does and until the very end you'll be guessing the identity of No. I (well, maybe not really.... Maybe you'll guess it much faster, but it doesn't matter). In the end, all the components of XIII mix together to create one awesome blend. If I have any problems with this game, it is an obvious one - the game ends on a very abrupt and annoying cliffhanger. It was supposed to have a sequel, but due to poor sales it has been canceled and we are left with a nerve grating "To be continued...". However that doesn't mar my enjoyment of the game and you can always read the comics to learn what happened next (you can get them in English at www.cinebook.co.uk).

A first person shooter with a loud and stealth approach. It works fine. Gameplaywise nothing will surprise you, but thats not its main focus. One of the games strong points is its comic book style appearance, which works really well. There are several different instances which you go through, so there will be variation. There is not a lot of detail, though, so you will not be enjoying the sights for long. The main point of the game, the story, fell kinda flat for me. The game is somewhat based on a comic book, XIII. I dont know anything about the comic, so I cant judge how close it is to the source material. The story begins action packed, with you not knowing who you are and trying to piece things together. Things develop rather quickly and you soon know who are your allies and who are your enemies, but the main gripe here is, nothing is explored deeply. Youre briefly introduced to good guys and bad guys and are told go. Your enemy is an organization called - the XX (the twenty). You even fight a few individual members of the XX as bosses in certain missions. But none of them are deeply explored, you know little to nothing about them, so their effect is very weak in terms of storytelling. You start out eleminating them one by one, but later on in the game you simply have most of them behind bars because the plot development demands so. And that shallowness persists throughout the entire game. Whats also quite disspapointing is a cliffhanger ending. It amazes me that the game devs created such a surface level storyline and had such weak character development, but still had the balls to end the game on a "to be continued...". Not like you will be too invested to be dissapointed that much. Despite all of its shortcomings, it was still entertaining, just be aware of what yorue getting into. For its price, its worth it.

This game has lots of bad reviews on here. I may just be easy to please, but I enjoyed it. I remember playing this game for Gamecube back in the day. I enjoyed it more on the PC (as I do with most FPS). As one reviewer noted, if it weren't for the cartoon-like graphics, this probably would have been pretty bad. The cool graphics + great music made this an enjoyable experience. I saw a lot of complaints about the save system... Honestly, that's just how games were made back in the day. Each level has anywhere from 1 to 3 checkpoints. Once you've already gone through a portion of a level, it never takes more than 2-3 minutes to get back to where you were before if you die. Lots of games at that time made you start the level over again! "Kids these days" wouldn't stand for that ha

What a great surprise from GOG to get this free. Very well presented and paced action shooter/stealth game. Better than the remaster that came out recently for sure.

Let's start with some honesty: this is far from the best shooter of its era. The erratic behavior of the enemies, their resistance to bullets, as well as the mediocre accuracy and/or rate of fire of most weapons make for a gunplay that often borders on clumsiness; and as it is often the case in FPS games, the stealth mechanics are unrefined, which would be okay if you were not forced so often through stealth sections. Which does not mean that XIII is not fun: despite all its faults, the gameplay is usually fast, well-paced and varied enough to keep you on edge until the final level, managing to have many satisfying gunfights. Some mechanics like the use of improvised weapons to stun enemies or the possibility to take hostages are innovative, and a few weapons are surprisingly fun to use: when this game slaps, it slaps HARD, and this is probably why I came back to it several times! While the models and textures are really simple even by 2003 standards, its artistic direction strongly inspired by comic books is what makes XIII so unique: the cel-shaded visuals, the bright colors, the on-screen onomatopoeia, the clever use of comic boxes to underline important details or brutal headshots... It looks pretty awesome, and this style is a big part of what makes this game memorable. The story, while a bit cliché and unsubtle for a conspiracy thriller, is decent enough - even though it's kind of dumb that all of the hero's allies never take the time to tell this poor amnesiac what is going on. Sadly, the campaign ends on a cliffhanger: since there will probably never be a sequel, you will need to read the original comic to see it resolved (I have never read said comic and don't know how faithful the game is, although it does seem a lot lighter in both tone and visuals). Overall, while it could definitely use some efforts in the gameplay department, this is a fun and stylish shooter which I would very much recommend to FPS addicts and art direction enthusiasts alike!