XIII

Rating:
Summary: Fun, but not great...
Review: Now I think 13 looks like a pretty fun game. But from what I have played, its just that, simply Fun. What it all boils down to is a fun First Person Spy/Shooter, with...umm.... unique graphics and a decent story. Other than that it is just like any mediocere First Person Shooter, just run around and kill things. There is no real depth to the game. We will see how it truley comes to and I will deffinitly revisit this review if it is something truley special.

Rating:
Summary: A unique first person shooter.
Review: OK, the cell shading may be the bait but the solid game play is the hook.
Voice acting is well done featuring Adam West and David Duchovney. However, some of the Duchovney sequences seem stilted and robotic compared to "master thespian," Adam West (seriously).

One exceptional sequence has you escaping from an asylum, using nurses as hostages and scavenging for improvised weapons.

Some stability issues mare the overall game experience had significant difficulty reloading the game after install and there were some installation issues with the copy guards on the 4 CDS.

Rating:
Summary: A unique first person shooter.
Review: OK, the cell shading may be the bait but the solid game play is the hook.
Voice acting is well done featuring Adam West and David Duchovney. However, some of the Duchovney sequences seem stilted and robotic compared to "master thespian," Adam West (seriously).

One exceptional sequence has you escaping from an asylum, using nurses as hostages and scavenging for improvised weapons.

Some stability issues mare the overall game experience had significant difficulty reloading the game after install and there were some installation issues with the copy guards on the 4 CDS.

Rating:
Summary: Developers should know better by now!
Review: The cartoonish graphics are unique and the story line was pretty good...your character has amnesia! You're not sure WHO the heck you are. I enjoyed the pop-up comic-like small cut scenes. The game's most unique feature would be the "ta ta ta" of enemies walking...it gave the game a more realistic sense of sneaking upon the enemy...knowing where s/he is at by the sounds of their feet. And was it just me, or did I hear Batman's voice for a couple of characters?

I would have rated this game a 4-5 star if it wasn't for the "save" feature...or should I say the lack there of!! The menu shows that you can save the game, but it only saves the game from the front of that chapter. So for enstance, you have to fight Mongoose and it takes SEVERAL attempts. Well, hellsbells, every time you reload your so-called save, it's back to the beginning of the chapter with a lenghty cut-scence.....over and over and over. It's almost not worth playing because of this! The game should at least allow you to "skip" the cut scene by using "ESC" or space bar...something!!!!!!!! BUT IT DOESN'T! YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO THE SAME BORING CUT SCENCES MANY MANY MANY TIMES! VERY AGRIVATING!!!

Rating:
Summary: A breath of fresh air
Review: The person who gave this game one star evidently is the only person out there with that opinion. I bought this game for my husband and he loves it. I feel that the storyline is a great breath of fresh air from the usual First Person Shooter games where you fight aliens, opposing forces, or robots. The graphics are ground breaking in the terms of this is the first FPS to use Cell-Shading. The story is taken from a comic book that was very popular in France. Xplay's review of this game is on the mark. But I wouldn't recommend this game to the novice beginner.

Rating:
Summary: Worth it, another golden eye copy though
Review: The reason why I say it's a "Golden Eye" copy is because, if you ever played "Golden Eye" for Nintendo 64, then you know what I mean by the way you play it. Like the camera action, but I guess its easier that way. But it will never beat the controllers, the "Golden Eye" controllers were really easy to get use too. These on the other hand, not really for someone who is not use to the gamecube controllers.

13 is based on a government conspiracy who which 13(code name) gets amnesia, and can't remember a thing. He needs to remember who he truly is. The games ok, but the graphics are amazing, I'd give it a perfect 10! The game is also kind of tough, but I'd admit I was a little addicted. Also the multiplayer is really fun too. Then once again, the multiplayer is kind of like Golden Eye.

Overall I think the game is pretty cool. But worth buying......I don't think so. But good for renting

Rating:
Summary: Worth it, another golden eye copy though
Review: The reason why I say it's a "Golden Eye" copy is because, if you ever played "Golden Eye" for Nintendo 64, then you know what I mean by the way you play it. Like the camera action, but I guess its easier that way. But it will never beat the controllers, the "Golden Eye" controllers were really easy to get use too. These on the other hand, not really for someone who is not use to the gamecube controllers.

13 is based on a government conspiracy who which 13(code name) gets amnesia, and can't remember a thing. He needs to remember who he truly is. The games ok, but the graphics are amazing, I'd give it a perfect 10! The game is also kind of tough, but I'd admit I was a little addicted. Also the multiplayer is really fun too. Then once again, the multiplayer is kind of like Golden Eye.

Overall I think the game is pretty cool. But worth buying......I don't think so. But good for renting

Rating:
Summary: Pretty and Shallow
Review: The upshot: XIII is a looker, but it's as pretty and shallow as your average NBC cast member.

There are a number of problems plaguing this title. First, it spans 4 CDs. I'm not sure I understand why. There really isn't that much in the game - the levels are not intricately detailed, by design there aren't high-detail textures. So why 4 CDs?

The levels are also very short, another puzzling factor. Not that much going on in the levels. They have all the resources my machine can devote to the problem, but can only load about 5 minutes of gameplay at a time. Which leads to a lot of load screens and waiting between boring segments.

These problems are aggravated by the constant necessity of switching CDs. The game prompts for a different CD literally every 20 minutes. Even more frustrating - you can be playing on CD 3, quit your game (out of boredom), come back a day later to play and for some reason it wants CD 2. Then, after two seconds, CD 3 again. Lame.

A few others have already covered the problem with the CD protection. In a word it is draconian. It seeks out "pirating" software (completely legal backup software) on your computer and will refuse to play if it finds it. Worse, if you make a copy for backup (which is legal, fair use) the copy will not work. So if one of your four CDs, through constant switching and moving around, gets scratched you have to buy another copy.

That is, of course, if you manage to stay involved in the game long enough to want to finish it. Which is hard. Although XIII is a very nice-looking title it is ridiculously trite and hackneyed as a game. Everything is point-and-click. It's only marginally more interactive than a "Myst" title in that respect. The gameplay is the tired old formula of shoot everyone, find a key, open a door, shoot everyone, repeat ad nauseum. And if that isn't simple enough for you everything you're supposed to shoot gets a big glowing icon around it, and all the keys and switches do the same.

David Duchovny is billed quite prominently for his voice-over work, and I guess it's good if you like muttering. Frankly you'll barely notice he's there - he has like 20 lines. The rest is spoken by extras straight from the local C-list talent agency. And the developer didn't even have the decency to make the lipsynch dynamic, so the characters lip-synch to what I can only guess to be the French version of the dialogue while speaking English. Meaning there is lots of gum flapping that doesn't coincide.

What irks me most about the game is how some areas seem so highly polished (the visuals) yet so much is poorly done. Take the NPCs for example. They just look robotic and stiff. Would it really be asking that much for someone to spend some time making them turn realistically? The AI is also a problem. Yes it's cool to have the AI stop to check out a dead buddy, but not when I'm five feet from him pointing a gun at his head. Shouldn't he be more worried about me?

The damage model is wonky too. I know a 9mm isn't the greatest stopping-power weapon known to man, but I know few people who can take 5 9mm bullets to the chest and keep running at me. It's the usual halfhearted approach to balance - complicated by the engine's apparent inability to have more than 4 NPCs on the screen at the same time. It might be more fun if the AI were just a bit smarter, but they're really just bullet sponges.

In the end I wasn't really offended by the game, it just completely failed to make an impression. I have no interest in finishing it; but I guess it doesn't really matter because they already got my money, right?

Rating:
Summary: Awesome game
Review: This game at first didn't get my attention. A graphic-novel comic book like presentation in a first-person shooter wasn't the first thing that I thought would be good. However, I decided to play it and man it is a great game. The controls are very well designed and easy to use and the engine is very fun to play and use.

The biggest strongpoint of the game is the story. You wake up on a New England Beach with amnesia and "XIII" printed on your chest. Soon, you realize that you're a secret agent and that everyone thinks you're dead. The ensuing storyline is suspenseful and keeps you coming back for more.

You play a agent whose accused of killing the president. The storyline does somewhat resemble the JFK assasination, especially the beginning. To show you what kind of suspense there will be, I'll show you some of the story, but don't read on if you don't want anything spoiled. As you go through the game, you find out that there are 20 conspirators who are hiding behind numbers and that the people in the conspiracy are major heads of the government. You also find out you were in a military group known as SPADS. The conspiracy killed the president and eventually wants to impose martial law on the country and impose a totalitarian regime in America. You have to find out each of the conspirators. You also find out that you are not the person everyone thinks you are. Everyone thinks you're Steve Rowland, XIII, but you are actually Jason Fly, a friend of Steve Rowland who was his rival and Jason Fly stole his identity through plastic surgery and putting XIII on your chest. The real Steve Rowland faked his death and killed the president, but was really killed by his employers.

There are about 8 major areas of the game that are divided into around 4 - 7 levels each with 2 or 3 checkpoints. You first find out 7 members of the conspiracy and then you go to a meeting and kill about 10 of them and find out who they are. In the last area, you find out number 3 and 2. Throughout the game, you are always guessing who number 1 is and sure enough it is a huge shock but its never really answered, because [you'll have to see for yourself].

The game is awesome. Its suspenseful and has many different twists and turns that keep you guessing even at the end. The game has its flaws. Its very short since you basically identify the members of the conspiracy and in the process find out a lot of interesting stuff and have a lot of "flashbacks", however in one level you indentify 10 of the members which significantly shortens the game. The ending is ok. You are treated to a huge shock as to whose number 1, but you never find out that much about you're past or why you ended up on a beach in New England with a key to Winslow Bank. When you encounter the person that the game kind of indicates is number 1, you'll see "To be continued". In the conspiracy screen, there's still the "?" at the end as to who #1 is.

In short, its a great game that has a few flaws, but the game is so much fun to play that its very easy to forgive those flaws. The only flaws is that it's short and that the ending isn't as conclusive as you would like, but that's probably being saved for the sequel, possibly titled "XIII-2". We'll find out in May at E3 probably what it will be called and when the sequel will be released. Anyway, I recommend the game and it is defintely a must-buy.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting idea, lousy execution
Review: This game gets off to a good start: you wake up on a beach, everything looks animation-cel painted, and your feelings of disorientation are well done using some sort of camera-wobble/blur technique. The idea here was also to add comic-book stylings: certain game elements appear in break-away and pop-up panels seperate to the main action, and sound effects get their own animation (like the "Bam!" of a gun or the "Tok!" of footsteps).

From here the problems are many. The savegame system mimics consoles: you must make it to the next checkpoint to save, and at least one level had *no* checkpoint throughout the entire first part. The gameplay is inconsistent: sometimes I can take down an opponent with one shotgun blast to the midsection, other times it takes a half-dozen head shots. There are times when a sequence starts you off surrounded by bad guys, and you end up standing there facing them, both of you plugging away at each other--no chance to duck behind cover or take them out strategically. Sometimes the comic-panel animations appear *under* my screen - I can see the edges of the animation poke up at the top. Sometimes the game locks up my hefty system. And every time I start the game, Disc 1 isn't good enough: it asks me to "please insert a XIII disc" until I give it Disc 2, 3, or 4.

I would pay [less] for this game just to try it multiplayer, but at [the price] I was very disappointed. I'd much rather have bought Max Payne 2.