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.
Just played through the teaser and it was exactly what I was expecting, a 6DoF game just like good old Descent 1+2. Firstly, I've no idea what Munkee79 was doing, going by their review. The default settings for brightness were fine, both in the menus and the game itself. The only settings I changed were going from windowed mode to fullscreen mode, turning on vsync (as with vsync off it was making my GPU fans go quite high - personally I'd prefer a framerate limiter rather than using vsync, but as this is just a teaser I didn't take the time to find one to use) and then turning off the mouse Y-axis inversion (as this is how I prefer to play these kinds of games). The tutorial level is very small and covers the basics of movement, primary and secondary weapons, secret walls/rooms, energy recharging rooms and security keys (there is one key and one locked door). Then it was on to the outpost level, a short level designed for this teaser. It is the basic Descent type of level where you make your way around the mine/facility to the reactor, which you then destroy resulting in a short time limit to reach the exit before everything blows up. Both of these levels are so small that I never even used the holographic guide, though I did use the 3D map. Lastly, I then tried the challenge maps (two are provided with the teaser). These are small deathmatch maps where you fight against unending waves of enemy bots until eventually you are destroyed, with the goal being to get as high a score as possible. Along the way, as you kill enemies, you'll unlock upgrades for your weapons and sometimes pickups such as invulnerability and a cloaking device. The graphics are great, the sound is fine and the controls have plenty of customizability. The only issue I had was with the mousewheel for switching primary and secondary weapons as sometimes it would take multiple clicks to switch them and at other times only one click. I'll definitely look into getting the full game at some point.
