XIII - Review

Added January 7th, 2004 by MULTIMASTER

Introduction:

Imagine waking up on a sandy beach one morning with a very bad case of amnesia. You have no idea how you got onto that beach and to make matters worse, you have no idea who you are. There are only two clues that can give you any hint of your identity, a bank key and a tattoo across your chest that reads XIII. Well, the cell-shaded first person shooter, XIII, puts you in exactly that spot.
The president of the United States, William Sheridan, is dead and you are arrested and blamed for his assassination though you insist that you were not the assassinator. After you escape from the holding compound, you begin your quest to uncover not only your role in the assassination of President William Sheridan, but most importantly, to unravel your shadowy past and solve the mystery of whom you really are.

Gameplay:

Let me start off by saying this, XIII’s fun factor shoots through the roof. I don’t know what gives this game its spark. It must be the huge assortment of weapons, gadgets, and objects that you can use to defeat your enemies, or the skills that are unlocked when you begin to find important documents hidden in the levels, or maybe it is the mysterious flashbacks that you have during the game. In XIII you will be armed to the teeth with anything from throwing knives, pistols, sniping weapons, and even a full array of automatic weapons. And don’t forget about the bazooka. You will also be using everything from chairs to ashtrays in order to knock your enemies unconscious. Along the way you will be able to pick up the body armor and helmets off of the guards that you killed, and believe me, when you start getting deeper into the game, that body armor becomes pretty useful. This brings me to my first disappointment of the XIII, the AI. Sometimes during levels they are overly alert making for some difficult missions, that isn't a big deal though; at least it will pose as a challenge. The problem with the AI is this. Most of the time the enemies are a little on the slow side. They might see you, but won’t act right away. One more problem that I found with the AI was on a stealth mission, like infiltrating a compound, you can still blast your way through. If you were to shoot the guards right outside of a cabin, which also had guards inside, the guards inside of the cabin would not be aware of your presence until you opened the door. I found this slightly disappointing because this gave those throwing knives little use throughout the game.

Graphics:

Cell-shading, some of you may hate it and others love it. I’m one of the people that don’t have a problem with it. XIII is based on a comic book, so it is only right for it to use cell-shaded graphics. In between levels the story will advance with the help of some cut scenes that are set up in a storyboard mode which are nicely done I might add. When explosions and bullets are going off, you will see words describing what is going on around you like BAOOM! for bazooka shots and BLAM! for grenade type explosions. After a while, these pop-ups become annoying. Whenever you get a nice headshot you will see a pop up window of the enemy you hit, drop in slow motion. Another thing is that the level design in XIII is great. There is a lot of variety, though they do get a little repetitive. Another thing that I liked where the cool effects, smoke had a very nice look to it, as did fire. XII graphics are very unique and the best use of cell-shading on the Xbox to date.

Audio:

XIII supports 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound, and it puts it to good use. You will hear enemies screaming all around you, bullets whizzing past you head, and explosions going off right next to you. The voice acting is great this game; David Duchovny, Adam West, and rapper Eve voice the three main characters. The music in this game fits in perfectly. It gets up-beat and a high tempo as the action begins to increase. Really gets your pulse pumping in the early levels. But later on in the game, it doesn’t have the same effect because you are used to it by then. Lots of the sound is very cartoon like, but that’s the way it should be. The sound goes great with the game.

Controls:

I have one problem with the controls, the aiming gets a little tough and reminds me a lot of the aiming in the Medal of Honor series. I really like the shortcut that they added to the game with the med kits. I find myself pressing the white button very often to quickly restore my health without pressing buttons to cycle through the menus to find a med kit. Here is what each button does:

A button: Jump
B button: Cycle through inventory
Y button: Next weapon
X button: Grab/reload
Black button: Reload
White button: Use med kit
Left thumbstick: Move character
Right thumbstick: Look
Right trigger: Fire
Left trigger: Alternate fire

Replay:

You might find yourself playing through this one more time after you complete it, especially if you do not understand the plot the first time around. But that isn’t the only reason you will want to play through the entire game again. The gameplay is so addictive, running around and killing people may cause you to loose a few hours of your life. XIII is Xbox Live enabled and it supports voice, friends, and scoreboard which add even more to this game. No downloadable content right now though, but later on you will be able to download new weapons, levels, missions, vehicles, and more. XIII also supports system link play for the unfortunate people without Xbox live. The multiplayer modes include death match, team death match, and an Xbox exclusive sabotage mode. XIII's multiplayer also supports bots. I don’t see myself putting this game down any time soon.

Summary:

You will hear a lot of criticism about this game, like I said before; some will love it while others will not find it interesting at all. Mostly because they aren’t into the whole idea of cel-shaded graphics. The game has great level designs at first but they do get a little old. The gameplay is definetly XIII strongest point. The multiplayer is extremely fun, especially on Xbox Live where you and a couple of friends will kick the crap out of each other for long periods of time. The downloadable content should also be able to keep the game fresh and sounds promising. The game already as plenty of weapons and the ability to be able to get more should be great. At first I was a little skeptical about the cell shading and how they would work with a bloody first person shooter. After completing the game, I have found it to be one of the most unique shooters I have ever played. Highly recommended!