XIII is an almost fantastic game. With the art direction being stylized, it still looks great. It's not as good as Borderlands, but still great. Cell shading does a lot to hide the age of the game. This along with good cut scenes made me feel like I was playing a comic, and it does all this on fairly low end cards. The story was above average (it actually had one), and there is actual depth on the various principle characters in the game. The voice acting was on the better end of video games. If it weren't for three sins and one flaw, it could easily have earned 5 stars. 1. Check points: This is an outdated concept that was obsolete years before XIII was published. Outside of a few genuine games where they actually enhance, it is a lazy game development tool. Life interrupts, and sometimes people can't take the time to make the next check point, and their game play was wasted. 2. Long times between check points and sudden death: I guess this could be two, but the combo is what makes it bad. I had sections of the game that would take up to 20 minutes (your mileage may vary) to reach the next check point, and a single failure during that time would result in complete failure and replaying the entire section. 3. Difficulty: I decided to play the game on Arcade mode (easy in other games) to just enjoy the story, and I had more trouble playing than I did F.E.A.R. on its hardest difficulty. I'm not saying it can't be done, it can, but Arcade (easy) should actually be easy. The one flaw was that bosses didn't feel balanced. Some were so easy I didn't even need a health pack, while others were so hard I had to replay the section several times. All in all, it was a fun time, and I'm glad I got it. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who would love to play an action spy game with plenty of shooting and sneaking. I would have been happy to have gotten it for $15-20. At GOGs price... It's a steal.
