Other Sites

Genre: First-person shooter

Format: DVD

Developer: Ubisoft

Mac Port: Zonic Ltd.

Mac Publisher: Feral Interactive

Minimum System Requirements: 800MHz PowerMac G3, Mac OS X v10.2.3, 256MB RAM, 32MB hardware accelerated 3D graphics card, QuickTime v6, 1.6GB free hard disk space, DVD drive

Review Computer: 1GHz G4 17" PowerBook, 512 RAM, Mac OS X v10.3.4

Network Feature: Yes

Price: $34.99

ESRB Rating: Mature

Availability: Now

Official Website: [url=http://www.xiii-thegame.com]http://www.xiii-thegame.com[/url]

The lesson to be learned from this game, I suppose, is this; if you're going to get a tattoo, get one that'll help you remember who you are should you ever get amnesia. "XIII" will do you no good. Perhaps that's why so many people tattoo the name of their lover across their bum...should they get amnesia, they can find someone with that name, and who's willing to look at their butt, and have that person explain to them who they are.

Such is the plight of XIII, the hero of the game named after him. He wakes up on the beach with no memory of who he is or how he got there, with only the aforementioned tattoo and a bullet wound to help him figure it out. Quickly, as emphasized by the swift murder of the lifeguard who finds him, XIII realizes that people are out to get him. Luckily, amnesia doesn't prevent one from remembering how to throw a puch, hit a guy over the head with a chair or ashtray, or use all manner of sophisticated weapons. And so, the life of a character in a first-person shooter is relived yet again.

Oh, and the President's dead. You're being blamed. This is why, after the assassination of an important figure, I'm very careful to protect my head from serious blows. Should I get blamed, I'd like to remember my alibi.

Bill Stiteler and I had the opportunity to speak with Feral's David Stephen about this game at Macworld Expo S.F. this past January. David stated that Feral generally concentrates on more family oriented games (although I hate to use the word "family," because that translates to "boring and insipid" in the entertainment industry, and Feral's games are anything but), but he's willing to go for the high action games with violent content if he feels the games are good enough. This is why they secured the distribution rights to Max Payne in Europe, and this is why they sought to bring XIII to the Mac.

Thanks, guys.

I suppose I should first talk about the look of the game, as that's what'll immediately set it apart from its competition. XIII is styled to look like a comic book (I'm under the impression it's actually based on one). The characters have flat colors and bold outlines, the objects appear 2D in a 3D world, and still images are used effectively throughout. This is no big deal, though. We've seen the comic book/graphic novel approach in Max Payne and Freedom Force, and the look of the game harkens back to the fantastic adventure, The Last Express from Broderbund. There, though, the cell shading applied only to the characters. In XIII, it covers the entire environment, with a few extra comic book kicks thrown in.

For instance, as characters walk, the words, "Tap Tap Tap" appear on screen, much like sounds are written out in comic books. Aside from enhancing the look, this has the added advantage of letting you know where characters are before you can see them. Also, when certain events happen, such as a character falling from a platform or a useful item being found in a room, the person/object of importance is pulled out and highlighted in a separate panel; again, mimicking the layout of a comic book. That all of this is done so seamlessly speaks highly of the designers/developers of XIII.

Of course, all of these visual achievements pale against the fact that Adam West is one of the voice actors in the game. XIII is gritty, violent, and somewhat dark, but with one eyebrow raised throughout. There's no better way to let gamers know we're all just having fun here than by making sure we hear Adam West's voice in the opening movie. You know, in case the whole comic book thing is lost on you.

If Adam West doesn't move you, and if you couldn't care less about the visual appeal of a game, you'd better be into first-person shooters as there's not much else here to really carry the game through. The story is intriguing, as I mentioned, but it's not all that original. I've read that it's a rip-off of The Bourne Identity, which I've never read or seen, so I can't vouch for that. I can say with a good degree of certainty, however, that plots about guys with amnesia trying to discover their identity and clear their name of a major crime were around well before Matt Damon was apparently caught in the situation.

The first-person shooter elements aren't groundbreaking, either. Oh, sure, you'll get your choice from fifteen weapons in the game, and no doubt gamers everywhere will actually care about that. You can also use items scattered around the game—like bricks, chairs and shovels—as stealth weapons. I threw so many ashtrays in this game that I was about to thank my friends who still smoke for keeping them on store shelves.

The levels are fairly well designed, usually affording multiple options for making your way through if you're patient enough to find them all. Ultimately, though, the game is quite linear in that they all lead you to the same place and usually have you fighting the same people. It's often a matter of shooting someone at the end of a hallway or sneaking up behind him through an air shaft. That kind of thing.

With 34 single player levels, the game is of decent length. Throughout, cut scenes and short snippets of dialogue do a good job of laying out the story, typical as it may be. The characters are interesting and the acting is done well, although XIII himself, played by David Duchovny, seems completely uninterested in everything going on around him. I don't mind David as an actor, but I don't think his low-key delivery works in this game.

I understand, though, that many gamers will find other elements much more important than the acting. Multiplayer, for example. There are multiplayer games here, of course, and they are even Mac to PC compatible (although it's much easier to find Mac to Mac games via GameRanger. There are the traditional Deathmatch and Capture the Flag games, along with some more unique games like Power Up in which your traditional pick-ups are replaced with items such as Super Gnome which causes your character to become deformed. The better you are, the less powerful your pick-up will be, thereby evening out the playing field somewhat. And hey, you have to love a multiplayer game in which Death himself makes an appearance.

Still, multiplayer gamers have by now learned to enter cautiously into multiplayer elements tacked on to single player adventures. The multiplayer component of XIII is decent, but its not going to cause anyone to uninstall Unreal Tournament 2004. At best, it'll extend the life of the game for you a bit or allow you to show off the visuals without having to launch into a new single player game.

Unfortunately, I did experience a few problems with this game. First, although my system did meet the recommended requirements, I couldn't get good frame rates during the fight scenes. What's more, lowering the graphics settings did nothing to improve this. It seemed that changing them made no difference at all. Second, there were quite a few points where the audio would stutter. The characters would repeat themselves to the point where it almost became funny. Third, a few times it seemed my enemies could not be hit even though I had my crosshairs aimed squarely at their chest or head. Only by moving and firing again could I do any damage. And fourth, the menu screens are unnecessarily difficult to navigate. I understand carrying through the comic book feel, but it wouldn't have been too hard to lay them out in a more intuitive manner.

And so, XIII is not without its problems, but they don't prevent the game from being worthy of experiencing it if your system is powerful enough to allow you see it how it should be seen. As those who have read my reviews before know, I'm willing to cut games some slack if they're interesting enough to look at. Such was the case with TRON 2.0, and such is kind of the case here. I say "kind of" because I feel this game would still be a worthy addition to a first-person shooter collection even without the cell-shading visuals. It's just that, as the game stands, it's the cell-shading for which it'll mostly be noted.

Or, of course, for starring Adam West. Should I ever lose my memory, I can only hope Adam will play some role in the labyrinthine plot to help rescue me.