XIII (PC)

Details: Category: Computer; By Dr. TeK; 01.Jun; Hits: 9806

Operating System: Win 98/ME/2000/XP Processor: Pentium III 700MHz or higher RAM: 128 MB Video: 32 MB DX 8.1 compatible with 3D acceleration Sound: 16-bit DX 8.1 compatible ESRB Rating: M for Mature

XIII is UbiSoft\'s innovative first-person shooter that places you in the midst of a tangled conspiracy that slowly reveals itself through out the game. Altho overlooked by many places when it was released, XIII is perhaps the best FPS of last year (2003).

Story

You start XIII out with absolutely no knowledge of anyhting at all, you wake up on a beach with amnesia, and soon find out that every one is out to kill you. The only clue that you have to go on is the number XIII tattoed on your shoulder and a key for a safe at a nearby game. Right from the start, the bad guys start coming, and for the rest of the game, you fight your way through a lot of them, with very good AI too, to slowly reveal clue\'s to what is going on. As not to give away any of the numerous surprises, I\'ll leave the rest to you to find out.

Gameplay & Graphics

As mentioned before, XIII plays like any first-person shooter, and it has a great pyhsics engine. It also uses pixel shading to acheive a comic book like effect to make it true to its inspiration, a French comic book by the same name. XIII does indeed pull off this style in an amazing way that makes it unique among all other games in the genre. Performance wise, it uses the Unreal 2 engine, so it can run decently on mid-range systems and up. In addition to shooting the bad guys, some areas require you to use stealth, and these parts resemble the use of stealth in other games such as Deus Ex and Splinter Cell. My only complaint gameplay wise was the lackluster checkpoint saving system, which sadly, there were at most 3-4 in some huge levels, meaning you WILL have to replay through some tough parts a few times to progress, as this game is no cakewalk even on easy. In addition to the single player, there is a limited multiplayer part to the game, but only has support for 8 player at most, and provides your standard solo and team deatmatch, capture the flag, and a varisnt of CS bomb/defuse, but the multiplayer aspect is more just for a few added minutes of amusement, and is really poor quailty.

Sound

The sound, overall is decent, well more accurately, passing. Although they had some good people doing the voice acting, David Duchovony and Adam West, it was not up to the quality you would expect from those actors, as the main character, voiced by David Duchovony, sounds like he is sleep walking the entire game. As for other sounds, the weapons and environmental sounds are decent, but they could have been better. The music resembles something from Mission: Impossible, but can get annoying, as it is very, very repetitive.

Appropriate?

Good so far, right? Well, here\'s the big bummer for and other wise good game. This game is very, very inappropriate. Aside from the regular Blood and Violence, which there is a lot of, the game uses every word in the book, including the F word at least 12 times I counted, and certain words starting with S and B, well over a hundred, as these two are favorites of enemies when they see you about to attack. Also there are some racial slurs strewn through out the dialogue, as well as some perverted humor. The last killer of this is that at one point in the game, you are forced to go through a janitors closet, which has pictures of nude women stripping.

Conclusion

Solid gameplay and story, mediocre sound, but I cannot recommend this to anyone due to its overly offensive content. Sadly, no matter how fun this game was, it was ruined by its offensive content.