Unlucky for some (XIII (PS2))

Member Name: Dringostarr

Product:	XIII (PS2)
Date:	16/01/05 (69 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Clever ability to pick things up, Excellent presentation, Wonderful storyline

Disadvantages: Slightly dumb AI, Terrible and I mean terrible multiplayer, looooooong loading

As every games company that ever existed attempts to have something cel-shaded in their line-up it is the now critically acclaimed publisher Ubi-Soft that come with the first cel-shaded FPS. But lets face it, when the game was announced over many months ago critics dismissed it as yet another shoddy game jumping on the cel-shaded bandwagon in a pathetic attempt to sell, I will shamefully admit I was one of those people.

How wrong we were.

When the game was unleashed in playable form at E3 2003 it easily stole the show, now it is available for all to buy and trust me, it is fantastic. The game is heavily storyline driven, you’ve awoken on a beach, you can’t remember a thing and all you have is a key and a tattoo of XIII (thirteen) on your chest. After being attacked at a bank you get arrested for the murder of the president. It is all very doom and gloom but as your memory comes back in a series of interactive flash backs (very nice) it truly sucks you in to this world of conspiracy and stolen identities.

The storyline is fantastic and getting proper actors to voice the characters (David Duchovny voices the lead) creates this feeling of an interactive movie. This is the first game that manages to re-create that special movie feeling from Goldeneye you couldn’t quite put your finger on and that alone makes it a must buy. The feel of the game is amazing, the weapons actually feel like weapons and not crappy pea-shooters and you cannot imagine how satisfying smashing an unsuspecting baddie round the head with a chair is. The control system itself does seem to take a step back from recent FPS’, which is a small pity but it is still easy to pick up and play and that is the important thing.

The cel-shading adds the entire comic book feel to the game, the game is based on the Belgium comic with the same name and Ubi-soft have included text within the game such as “boom” and “nooo” in an attempt to re-create that comic book feel. The cel-shading works wonders on the character modelsand the blur effects are gorgeous but the surrounding scenery does lack detail and in the wake of Zelda this is somewhat of a disappointment. But this does not hinder some fantastic level designs that includes the wonderful Asylum level (complete with crazy software engineer) and the garden in which you have to sneak your way through by sniping off guards and hiding their bodies in the shrubbery.

Sadly the game has some annoying faults. The loading is way to long and there is no auto save making you sit through that loading screen too often. The multiplayer is awful and you are forced into playing Timesplitters 2 instead and the AI is plain dumb.

But these are faults that are easily forgotten when you lodge a piece of broken glass into someone’s head or mow down an army of prison guards. Clever ideas including taking hostages and picking up part of the scenery is all vital to the gameplay and good fun to boot. XIII will not let you down.

It is just a shame we'll probably never see a sequel to what was in fact a gripping tale.

Summary: