XIII

Overall, a very good and fun first person shooter that has an excellent storyline told in graphic novel presentation style. Fails to set itself apart from other games in terms of gameplay however. It has the standard features that many other fps have.

XIII or Thirteen is based upon a long running French comic book of the same title. The President has been assassinated and somehow you were involved, but you don't know how. The game starts out with you washed up on the beach in a with absolutely no memory of how you got there or what the deal is with the XIII tattoo on your chest. XIII's storyline continues with this mystery revealing a little more of your past with each mission.

The graphics of XIII are unique and are able to tell the story in a cinematic way unlike any other game. Using cel-shading and the comic book style graphics, the visual effects grab and pull you into the mysterious storyline. If you're looking for new innovative gameplay however, you won't find it in XIII, behind all the graphics and storyline, is a standard first person shooter gameplay.

Some of the missions are somewhat linear and a few lack much freedom at all which gives you the feeling you're following a predetermined path. Weapons in XIII are few and far between, which forces you to use available objects such as chairs to fight with.

XIII also has multiplayer capability includes the games mode deathmatch, capture the flag maps and one mode specific to what platform you're running(i.e. PC, PS2, Xbox...).

Overall, the storyline and graphics is what sets XIII apart from a lot of other fps. You tend to be drawn in more and more, that the lack of weapons and new gameplay features becomes forgotten.