Welcome do our review of XIII, a game based on a comic and getting a second life on the current generation of consoles!
XIII is a remake of the cult first-person action game that was initially released in 2003. You play as “XIII”, a man without an identity, in a solo campaign with numerous twists and turns. Inspired by the eponymous graphic novel, the game features a completely reinvented and unique cel-shading design. In XIII, players can also take part in fierce multiplayer fights.
WHO ARE YOU, REALLY?
The country remains in a state of shock following the assassination of President Sheridan. You wake up, wounded and with amnesia, on a deserted beach on the east coast. The only clues as to your identity are a tattoo of the number XIII near your collarbone and a locker key. Even though your memory is failing, you discover that you have the reflexes of a highly trained professional fighter. You set off in search of your past, discovering that you played a role in the murder of the President of the United States of America, and revealing the most astounding conspiracy ever hatched in the country’s history.
This game comes straight out of one of the more famous comic strips in Europe. Famous for its specific art style that was transferred rather perfectly into the game many years ago when the original version came out on GameCube and other platforms of that era.
As this is a remake I expected the game to look exactly like it does, modern yet still with that old-style feeling. As a first-person shooter/adventure game, I really appreciate how the difficulty settings influence the heaviness of which genre gets priority. Easy mode prioritizes the storyline while hard mode really makes the first-person shooter elements shine.
I chose easy mode for my review so I could prioritize the storyline and advance as quickly as possible. This resulted in most enemies getting killed within one or two bullets and often just a few punches needed. I have to admit here, nothing beats picking up a chair and hitting a bad guy in the back.
Story-wise, the game develops rather slowly and there are tons of older reviews of the original editions of the games out there so I will not go into too much detail. My focus is mostly going to be on the gameplay itself and several of the bugs I encountered.
I don’t know if it was just me, but I encountered a few weird bugs during my gameplay. Twitching corpses, missed bullets when standing right in front of the enemy and the lack of guidance just to name a few. The most annoying one is that there is a function that will allow you to cheat in a way, by triggering it you get to see what needs to be done next. Sadly this did not always work and especially during the lock pick scene did this prove to be annoying.
Not all is bad though with this game, visually it looks like a real comic at times, can almost compare it to the latest Borderlands game in look and feel. Voice acting was rather cringe-worthy as lips moved completely out of sync, though I must admit this was probably done on purpose to keep up with the comic strip feeling.
In conclusion, XIII may look the part but it does not play the part, it just did not capture my attention to keep wanting to play. Let us call this a nice attempt and move on.
