XIII
Feral Interactive
Price: $55 (demo available)
Pros: Exciting new graphic style, fresh melee weapons and firearms, and popular voice actors.
Cons: Frustrating menus and limited multiplayer support.
by Gerrit Dalman
Shooters are a dime a dozen now, but one of UK distributor Feral Interactive's new releases, XIII (Thirteen), stands out from the crowd.
This game is based on more than just the story of the comic book by the same name. Rather than using semi-realistic 3D rendering typical in video games, XIII employs a technique called cell shading that uses the real 3D information to block out colored shapes. The result is a visual style that resembles a comic but retains all the capabilities of computer graphics.
Every aspect of the game is meant to feel like a living comic book. There's no page turning, but everything from menus to cut scenes is presented in frames. Shoot a foe in the head and see three subsequent frames of the impact flash on your screen.
It's more than dressing though. Crouch and cartoony letters spell "tap, tap" - warning you of the guard waiting for you around the corner. Come across an object that is important to the story and it is highlighted in comic-style box. Despite taking up a lot of screen space in some cases, this usually helps you complete your mission.
Those missions follow a pretty tight plot. Though corny in detail, it is creative. You play agent XIII, voiced by The X-Files' David Duchovny, who finds himself amnesic and on the run. You spend most of the game fighting through soldiers to find characters from your past and trying to piece together your life through character dialog, stolen documents, and flashbacks.
Despite the attention paid to the story, XIII is still a shooter at heart. You often have the option to sneak and snipe or go in guns blazing, but regardless of your technique you'll have plenty of tools at your disposal. The crossbow and throwing knives are a nice addition to the weapons you'd expect and the revolver, which you can speed shoot like Clint Eastwood, is a personal favorite. You can also pick up chairs, ashtrays, and shards of glass to smash or throw at the enemy.
Your arsenal is even rounded out with some non-lethals. The grappling hook and lock-pick are essential to navigating most missions and you can even take hostages to cover a retreat. The pop-up needs for these actions make the game pretty interesting the first time around. Once you've finished it, you can adjust the difficulty and try again, but the cheesy voice acting, repetitive kill animations, and looping soundtrack will get old quick.
The multiplayer aspect is no help either. Network play is supported via GameRanger but in a week of trying I couldn't find anyone to play against. That says something. I was able to try out the "bot challenge" which simulates online play and found it slow and uninteresting. Of course that just means the virtues of the game do not translate well into deathmatch.
On the up side, the Mac version of XIII contains all the game types from both the PC and console versions, making Mac OS X hands-down the best platform for XIII.
As the first of its kind, XIII is a welcome addition to the Mac library. It has some deficiencies though. Audio often skips and the comic book menus can be difficult to navigate on the first try. The mission failure dialog surprisingly lacks a load option so you have to navigate back to the main menu if you don't want to replay the whole level.
The games strong point is it's novel appearance. The cinematic effects that represent being stunned or having a flashback look great. The style is surprisingly consistent and you really feel like GI Joe or some other hero in cartoon action that belies the realism of the underlying engine.
XIII has reasonable system requirements and a violence setting so it might even be an option for some younger players. It's not a must-have for everyone, but if you're a fan of shooters or are looking for a new kind of eye candy, check this one out.
System Requirements:
* Mac OS X 10.2.3 or later
* 800MHz G3 or better
* 256MB RAM
* 1.6GB of disk space
* 32MB or better video card
* DVD drive