XIII

GameCube

XIII is based on a French comic book written by Jean Van Hamme. Although the game could easily have degenerated into an average first person shooter with a unique look, XIII seems to be well on its way to much greater things.

The main character in XIII (pronounced "thirteen") is a man who has lost his memory. It so happens that before this tragedy occurred, he was some sort of government agent with extraordinary skills. Throughout the game, you will experience playable (although in a limited way) flashbacks in which you can learn bits of your past and reacquire old skills as well. Apparently, there is a conspiracy afoot to assassinate the president of the United States that you must stop.

In the E3 demo (shown on XBox), the gameplay was coming along very nicely. A key skill in the game is XIII's sixth sense. So far, the only manifestation of this sense I've seen is the ability to "see" footsteps of nearby guards through walls. You can see comic book style words like "tap" rise from the point where a guard’s foot contacts the ground. Since the indicator begins flashing when guards are approaching, it can probably be used to prevent guards from sneaking up on you as well. I'm sure it has other uses too. There are quite a few other abilities that are a bit more normal but no less interesting. You can use enemies as human shields for example, grabbing them with your left hand while you fire shots at other enemies with your right hand. When you're done, you can break the poor guys neck. You can even pick up dead bodies, which is essential, because a body lying in plain view will eventually alert the other guards. In fact, so will open doors if they should be closed. Your character can take damage specific to the legs, body or head. You can also kill enemies instantly with a well-placed headshot, or a little more slowly with other shots. You can pick up many items in the environment (chairs and bottles) to use as one-time weapons against your enemies. I also saw the use of a grappling hook of sorts.

Graphically, the game has an impressive style. The cel lines are very thick compared to most cel-shaded games. The environments are not cel-shaded, but the textures used lend themselves to the cel-shaded characters very well. In some places, I saw comic-book-style words floating away and vanishing such as when a guard screams. It was visually a very interesting game.

As with most games at E3, it was difficult to hear the sound. The control scheme at E3 was not one I'm very good with, but I was assured that it would be fully customizable in the final product. That's always good news. XIII is due out on all platforms in early 2003.