XIII

Written by Leigh Culpin  on February 03, 2004

Full Review: So is a game based off of a French comic that's made in Canada with mostly American voice-overs Frenadamerican?

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Ubi's latest entry into the world of the First Person Shooter is one that borrows its name, plot, style and look from a French comic of the same name. While the game play turned out pretty decent, the aesthetics turned out great, and despite the fact that the looks and sounds alone might not make a great game, the story is pretty enticing in of itself.

Advertised as a conspiracy story of great renown, the game does indeed throw you right in the midst of a giant conspiracy which you piece together a bit at a time with your character, XIII, since he's gotten himself a nasty little case of amnesia. You start the game washed up on a beach, not knowing who you are with nothing to help jog your memory but a safety deposit box key and a tattoo on your chest with the numerals "XIII" on it. David Duchovny does a bang-up job of voicing XIII over, though he doesn't actually say that much. On the other hand Ц Eve -- whose character comes mysteriously to your rescue part way through the game, does a good deal of talking and plays her part rather nicely as well. The icing on the cake, however, is a character introduced later in the game, voiced by none other than the greatest Batman himself, Adam West. Those three stars aside, the story progresses extremely smoothly through the all-around excellent voice work done by the entire cast. Despite being based upon a comic book, there is very little text-based storyline related to you, creating a deeper sense of immersion than most games of late have. That immersion's very important to the game, as despite the fact that just as the story starts to get really good the game ends, without the level of immersion that is present this would turn into just another pretty shooter. And it is VERY pretty.

The weapons, characters and objects are all beautifully cel-shaded, while the environments vary from semi-realistic to being cel-shaded themselves. While this may sound like it's kind of out of place compared to the rest of the world, everything meshes very well and adds to that immersion that's so crucial for the world of XII. One of the coolest parts is one that Mr. West could likely appreciate - certain actions, such as explosions, head-shots, enemies running around on fire and the like are all accompanied by not only great sound effects, but words mimicking those sounds effects. While we don't see "Bam" or "Pow" very often like in the old Batman TV show, it's the same idea and it's carried out very well. Additionally, certain scenes will display a few comic book style frames at the top of the screen displaying the action from different angles - sometime an enemy patrolling around the corner and down the hall will pop up in a rectangular window, giving you a heads up on when he's facing what way, while shooting a guard in the head with the sniper rifle or crossbow will give you three (somewhat graphic) frames of the bullet or bolt slamming into and through the poor sap's head. While not particularly youngin' friendly, it adds a cool comic book feel to the very movie-like experience that is this game.

The controls are pretty much your standard shooter fair, thumbsticks moving and looking, triggers primary and alt. fire, face buttons things like activate, jump, reload and the like. The D-Pad cycles through your inventory (which contains things like a grappling hook, lock-pick, key cards, med kits, etc) and either the "use" button or the right trigger (primary fire) chooses, and then uses, that item. While the controls may be standard fare, and the gameplay somewhat formulated (being that the game is a shooter), there are also some key innovations in the title - throughout XIII will recall various skills he had prior to losing his memory (such as holding your breath for extended periods of time, silent kills, taking enemies or civilians hostage and using them as human shields, and having an uncannily steady sniping ability while walking), and one of the first is a "sixth sense" that lets you hear, or rather see, the footsteps of nearby enemies should you stop moving. After holding still for a second you'll start to see "tap, tap, tap" as nearby characters walk around, a simple yet rather generous tool since a good chunk of the game is based around necessary stealth - while most mission are easier if you do them quietly (though not always as much fun) some actually require it, causing an instant mission failure if an alarm is raised. Having said that, it's not like you can't be seen, you just need to make sure that anyone who does see you doesn't get the chance to yell, shoot or raise an alarm. Additionally, bodies left lying around will be noticed, so you'll have to hide them more often than not.

Weapons include pistols, rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers, and things you find lying around like brooms, bottles, shards of glass and a variety of other one-use items which come in quite handy throughout -- considering that ammo isn't exactly thrown at you with excessive generosity. It's not tiredly sparse; it's just not so abundant that you can use a whole clip on every enemy that you see (which can be the case when you first get some of the automatic weapons, the recoil on them is enormous). This, in addition to the fact that you can perform "silent kills" -- as well as taking enemies hostage should you be able to grab them from behind -- adds a nice new depth to your standard point and shoot formula.

The game's music is easily as original as the graphics, not only fitting extremely well with the game but being original enough to be clearly recognizable outside of the game's context. This is an especially nice treat for an audiophile such as myself, since good game soundtracks have been somewhat lacking as of late, and I really didn't mind not having a custom soundtrack option for the first time in recent memory. The sounds are all of similar quality, and surround here is definitely a plus.

Xbox Live support is present, as well as system link and of course head to head on one console. Bots can also be put in play, but quite frankly the multiplayer is the weakest aspect of the game- it just doesn't feel like it should. Perhaps it's that it's too easy to die, or more likely that the multiplayer has a fast and frantic pace that works well in games like Unreal Tournament but not in a thought-out methodical shooter like XIII. Having said that, it is there and while it may take some getting used to, it could certainly be a thirst quencher as we all wait for the next big wave of multiplayer FPS games to come out.

Goodies included are things like a comic-strip version of the plot you've uncovered (though without text), important documents you can recover throughout the game detailing the story further, identities of various characters and other nice little plot-related puzzle pieces. There's nothing exciting enough to warrant playing through the game a second time just to get some more unlockables, but what's there does a nice job of accenting the game.