XIII - Remake

I got this game a year ago and it was in a bad state but after tower five stepped in and fixed a lot of the bugs that were present and after reading a few good reviews I decided to get it again and give it a go and i am enjoying it

This is an interesting case where an older game made to run on the PS2 is put up against a much more modern but very low budget remake. Each has their own share of "jank" rooted in their origins, but very different jank entirely. Quick note: playing the remake in 2022 I have encountered no real bugs outside of a few minor ones, so all the Youtube videos of crazy glitches and such are either fixed or I'm darn lucky. The jank of the remake is stuff like stunted animations, performance drops in random areas, poorly done cutscenes. The jank of the original is stuff like poorly placed checkpoints, iffy aiming and ruthless one and done alarm stealth sections. Each game frustrates in its own way, but each has its benefits. If you pay any attention you'll find fans of the original hating on this game's visuals, but honestly they're just different. The original game was going for a comic book look, and this game is going more for a Pixar look. I try not to judge games on things they weren't even trying to do. The original is flawed in its own ways with areas that often feel like empty boxes, no AA whatsoever and low-res videos. The new one has those poorly done cinematics and animations, but it does have nice looking environments and great lighting. In short, I find both games to be flawed but enjoyable now that the remake's bugs are less intrusive. The original was never a great PC FPS game, it survived on its style. The remake arguably has less of that style, but the shooting is better and the checkpoints less frustrating. I'm honestly pretty split on which I'd recommend to a new player. I'd probably just recommend they play something better than either.

This game is notorious for the issues it had on release, and after handing it over to a new developer and getting a reworking in September 2022 it is now pretty much fixed and a decent release. I've just finished a playthrough from start to finish, and only had one major bug occur. There were some very minor bugs, but they had no impact on the gameplay. Overall, this is just the same game as the original XIII with a new coat of paint. I quite like the improved graphics, but it's a shame that the cutscenes weren't updated with the additional black comic book outlines that got added with the improved reworking. Here are the few bugs I did experience: * The one major bug I had was on the level "Intrusion". At one point you have to plant a bomb on the submarine and then move away from it. Now I don't know what caused it, but I what I did after planting the bomb was to get out of the water, saw the cutscene of it exploding, and then you have to swim back to the other side. However, whenever I went in the water it was immediate death, so I could not continue. I had to restart the level, and it was fine on my second attempt. * Also, in the "Intrusion" level, the original game had divers with harpoons as you swim back, as well as some other enemies that show up after the bomb explodes on the submarine, but in XIII Remake these enemies never showed up. A bug or an intentional change? I don't know. * Dead body ragdolls aren't quite right. Especially with the female bodies. When you drop a dead body it can clip into walls and objects and make a constant banging noise as it adjusts (eventually stopping), whilst female bodies, when you drop them, they go spinning to the floor. On the "Infiltration" mission I also had some dead bodies that, when dropped, would fall vertically to the floor with the lower half of the body submerged into the ground. * On the final level, one of the NPCs ended up half submerged into the ground, but you don't interact with this character anyway.

It's a lot better than it was on release and is worth a buy on sale.

Much much better with the recent patch. Big shout out to everyone who has been working on all of the improvements, albeit performance or new animations, etc. etc. What makes a remake good is keeping the game recognisable and at the same time changing a balance a little bit here and there, forcing the player to try something new. New patrol patterns for enemies, new sniper spots, various other changes sure make the game more exciting and fresh to play.