The best first person shooter ever based on a comic book.
XIII's story will feel reminiscent to the Bourne Identity, and the opening scenes will lead people to believe this game is a sort of what-if story around the assassination of JFK. Neither of these are necessarily true. As the game opens, you are an amnesiac who wakes up on a New England beach with a bullet wound in your head and the FBI on your tail, as you've been accused of assassinating the American President. However, the story takes many interesting turns, and introduces many memorable, if somewhat one dimensional, characters. Obviously, there's a lot more character development that can be done in a comic book series than in a 10 hour video game, but some more motivation or background information on at least the main character would've been nice. Not everything is told to you directly; some things you'll have to deduce for yourself, which was a nice touch.
In the graphics department, XIII really excels. It plays off its comic book roots with cel shaded graphics - weapons, characters, environments - everything. An explosion will be signified by the phrase "BOOM". A thug who's been killed will scream "NOOOOOO" in agony, and enemies that fall off of ledges to their doom will go down with a satisfying "ARRRRR". Cut scenes feature frames - sometimes multiple ones, similar to the transitions on the show 24. Nailing a headshot will cause a three panel sequence to pop up, showing a gruesome close up of the results. The main character has a sixth sense ability, being able to detect footsteps with a visible "TAP, TAP, TAP". Every level of the game looks different and varied, nary is there a bland corridor or hallway. Some locations are absolutely beautiful, and it's a shame that you'll have to spend your time there on business instead of pleasure.
As for sound, the usual FPS variety of audio is there. All the weapons sound unique and deadly, and nearby explosions will cause a nice deafening effect. The voice acting in this game is great, with memorable performances by Adam West and Eve. I wish David Duchovny had more lines, though. The music in this game is incredibly enjoyable, and there are several tracks for each level to set the tone - slow paced music for the quiet moments, and fast paced music to get your adrenaline pumping during intense shootouts.
Gameplay, by and large, isn't too different from other first person shooters. Thankfully, it's also very fun. Like almost all recent shooters, XIII sports area specific hit detection - a headshot usually kills enemies, except for ones wearing helmets. XIII also has a variety of standard weapons, such as several machine guns, shotguns, pistols, sniper rifles and a rocket launcher. Ones that I don't commonly see are a harpoon gun, the crossbows, and the normal, everyday items. Yes, XIII lets you use everyday items such as chairs, whiskey bottles, ashtrays, broomsticks, shards of glass, etc, as weapons. These are usually used for silent take downs, and for knocking out people that you're not allowed to kill. About 50% of the game revolves around stealth missions, so if that's not really your thing, then you might not enjoy this game as much. You'll have to run through stealth levels several times before you get everything down pat. Throughout the game, there are a several interesting boss fights, but nothing too challenging. The difficulty can be changed in the options menu, so if you find normal too hard, you can set it down to arcade mode for an easier time through. One of the cool things, which I wish they'd used more and implemented better, was the skills. As an amnesiac, you'll have to relearn skills you previously had. Skills such as the first aid skill (which doubles the amount of health regained with health packs) and the sniper rifle skill (which allows you to maintain steady aim with moving with a sniper rifle) make the game easier, and in some cases less frustrating. The only gripe would have to be the checkpoint save system. Sometimes levels have no mid-level checkpoints, or far too few, but for the most part, it's tolerable.
Multiplayer has the usual 4 player splitscreen action, with deathmatch and capture the flag, and most maps coming from singleplayer mode. The only new mode is "The Hunt", which involves players wielding winchester shotguns hunting down a singing, AI controlled Grim Reaper character for points. The Grim Reaper kills upon touch, and bonus points are rewarded for killing it. Every time it is shot, it becomes shorter and moves faster, making it harder to hit. It's too bad they didn't include the "Power-Up" and "Sabotage" modes found on the other console versions, as well as the PC version.
As a shooter, XIII is an excellent example of the genre. I would recommend this game to anybody who enjoys first person shooters and/or an entertaining story to go along with their action games.