Techtite's PC Game Reviews!

"For a guy supposedly 'slowly' getting his memory back throughout the game, flashbacks you receive are almost laughably irrelevant. Oh goody; you remembered seeing this woman before! Oh dandy: you remembered going up to this general and saying 'Hi,' once..."

---from the review

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You may also wish to buy:

 XIII Official Strategy Guide

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Sidebar :

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The little details: good version. There are several little details of this game --both good and bad-- that were too incongruous to list in the full review, yet worth mentioning in the sidebar. Here's the good news, first. I liked how a little "zoom in" rectangle centered on characters about to get the jump on you from afar (a feature called a "sixth sense" skill). Then there's how the lead bad guys resemble a certain racist "clan" you may have heard of, and you get to kick their behinds. Then there's the way a memory relapse is shown in black and white; nice touch. Likewise to how you can take a hostage, but in a good lesson- to- learn; it's a stupid idea because the people you're trying to cowardly hide from with your "human shield" will always try to get the jump on you from behind, so it's not something you want to do often. These are the details this game gets very right. On the other hand... 

The little details: bad version. Likewise, there are several flaws with this game that weren't worth bringing up in the review because they are too minor, yet still worth mentioning. Like how this four-CD game requires you to swap discs (!) even if you installed the game "completely." Like how the cutscenes are the reason for all this disc-swapping, and quite frankly, they aren't good enough to warrant so much disc space for them (a simple slide show a la Max Payne, or an in-game cutscene feature would've made more sense here). Like how the few in-game cutscenes there are, cannot be "skipped," even if you've been forced to see them 12 times each thanks to some dumb schmuck putting the latest ultra-rare "checkpoint" just before the cutscene. Then there's how David Duchovney is so wasted in his voice role, because you rarely hear "XIII" utter a single peep. He could've been "voiced" by a mime most of the game.

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XIII 

("Thirteen")

Click picture to order this game (PC/windows version)

A Techtite Review

I really hate smugness in games. No, not smugness in the characters, dialog, or story, though rather smugness in the game designers, who after giving me a "You failed!...GAME OVER!" type message for the 20th time in only 20 minutes, keep expecting me to come back for more, with glee. Here's the problem; in order to have me keep coming back, with any joy in doing so, you have to eventually explain why I should even bother, as far as the storyline is concerned. Although XIII (that's: "Thirteen") does finally reveal the reason for all your character's woes ---and why you should even care--- it was a bit too little, too late for this gamer's tastes.

The sales pitch to XIII is that it is a FPS told in "comic book" style. Every spoken word has a speech balloon; every tap of the feet is shown by "Tap Tap Tap" messages on the screen, showing you all enemies around a corner or behind a closed door. Shoot an enemy, and a large comic book style exclamation appears, ranging from "Bam!" to "Noooooo!" It sounds like an interactive 1960's Batman episode, and in a way it is, but it's also far cooler. However; it was fun to hear your friend The General voiced by none other than Adam West!

You begin this story as an amnesiac on the beach, with a wound to the head and faint memories of the yacht you were thrown off of during a gunfight. You soon learn that your "name" ---if you can call it that--- is Number XIII. You also learn that Number XIII is the same guy the FBI is searching for in a recent high-profile murder. Friends you meet along the way help you to find out what is going on, to discover who is responsible, and to inevitably (and with any luck at all) save the day.

The game interface is top notch, thanks to the latest Unreal game engine as a template. Health packs are collected in inventory to be used any time you wish. Inventory holds various gadgets depending on a mission, like a lock pick or a really cool motorized grappling hook. Meanwhile, all the game's cool comic book elements help you in your mission; if something important is mere tiny pixels on screen, a miniature window opens up, comic-book style, to show you what's happening at close range. Kill a major character and they often lead to inset photos of their demise, picture by picture, in dramatic "comic book" style. Cool.

It's the rules of the game where XIII loses most of its footing. Unless you search like a squirrel collecting nuts for winter, health packs and ammo are very scarce. This wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for a save game feature right out of video game land; sorry, kids, games are only saved at "checkpoints," which is not as bad as some video games where progress is only saved at the beginning of each level, though it's not much better, either. Here's where the game had me laughing out loud, for all the wrong reasons; it has a quick save, though it merely "quick saves" your current game level! The joke is: quick saves are for saves of your current position; that's the whole point. They weren't made just to save game progress that, unless you quit, is automatically saved as it is. A patch someday might correct this, but don't hold your breath.  

As for the story; I'm all for anticipating the outcome of a mystery, but this game overdoes it at times. Number XIII recovers his memory very, very slowly, and in the process, the story itself is just as slow. It's actually quite ironic that they used David Duchovney from The X-Files to voice your character; much like that series' most annoying flaw, this game baits you with so much incongruous data, you begin to wonder if you'll ever discover "the truth is out there" at all. For a guy supposedly "slowly" getting his memory back throughout the game, flashbacks you receive are almost laughably irrelevant. Oh goody; you remembered seeing this woman before! Oh dandy: you remembered going up to this general and saying "Hi," once. Sure, the memory lapses are in cool black and white, and yet that's all you can say that's good about them.

It can be sardonically complimented, that it makes total sense in this story that Number XIII was nearly killed thanks to the ineptitude of his undercover "friends." In any number of key moments, your allies have more than enough time to tell you what the heck is going on. They don't. As a result, both XIII and the game player are both left with obvious questions that leave you asking "Why the heck am I even bothering to do this?" half of the time. Here's one of many questions XIII should be asking for us, but never does: Didn't the FBI explain as early as level 2 that the assassination already happened? So why am I risking my life again and again to stop people from doing what they're doing, when they already did the worst of it...? You'll find out why by the finale, of course, but is it too little, too late? To this gamer it was.

It is important, however, to compliment this game for its positives. This is truly a magnificent achievement in games that want the "comic book" feel to their story. Speech balloons are perfectly handled, and are so well constructed, that when the person talking moves, the speech baloon's "arrow" moves with them. I especially liked the "inset" angle; if something happens beyond a nearby door or somewhere close by, you'll see what's happening in a sort of inset picture, that is often itself totally animated, and not just a still picture. It's a nice engine template for comic book storylines, and I hope to see it used for similar works in the future (if a film like Spider-Man 2 used this engine for a game based on the movie, that would be particularly cool).

Flaws notwithstanding, this would've still been an intriguing interactive-comic-book, if not for those smug game designers. I would never spoil a game's ending for you, but I will warn you that XIII's ending is left wide-open, and worse yet, with a "To Be Continued..." message! This is not a spoiler; it's just a warning, for all who'd consider to-be-continued as a euphemism for "To see rest of story, please wait a few years and give us more money." It's a nice enough ending for people who like cliffhangers, but consider how stupid it is to make this game almost demand a sequel. What will the sequel be called? XIV...? Thirteen-Two? Come on. Just finish the story and stop toying with us gamers, please.

In the end, this would still have been a nice enough "part one," so to speak, if not for that inferior, infernal "save game" feature, and the ending that really isn't one. The game designers had a nice concept all laid out for them here. It was up to them to make XIII as enjoyable as it should've been, given its cool premise. Well, I'm sorry guys:

"You Failed!"

"Game OVER!"

---Techtite