Despite a few hitches here and there, XIII's visuals and gameplay are very enjoyable...
Just as T2.0’s metallic neon tinctures kept my eyes locked on every cutscene and character – with their cool blue, angry red, and sickly green hues – XIII’s thespians were likewise inviting in their simple yet unique cel-shaded glory. I was often fascinated by the way shadows played across a character’s features as he or she moved between light sources. The way in which the article of a bad guy’s demise – crossbow bolts, throwing knives, and even chunks of debris -- remained embedded in his skull at the precise point of impact was grisly, but absolutely spot-on with regard to the level of detail that I like to see in a shooter. XIII’s use of onomatopoeic tags for different sound effects (like the “Zap! Pow! Clobber! Queef!” titles that flashed across the screen in the wonderfully hoary Batman TV series) were incredibly fitting in a game designed to function completely like an interactive comic book, not to mention very helpful: the “TAP Tap tap” of a guard’s receding footsteps often mitigated the frustrating experimentation and mistimed peeking that typically rots the stealth experience for me. I’ll never forget the first time an aggressor’s “NOOOOOOooooooo…” death knell formed the wake of his plunge to the unrelenting planks of a beachside boardwalk. Call me easily amused, but eye candy like that is well worth thirty-to-fifty bucks a pop.
Smacking enemies around with all kinds of commonplace objects – bottles, ash trays, bricks, brooms, chairs; if it’s there, the player can most assuredly hurl it – was a very nice touch and reminded me ever-so-slightly of Number 47’s impromptu executions in the Hitman series. Again, my general disdain for the “try, try, try again” monkeyshines of most “sneakers” cooled considerably since I usually had the option of clouting a noncombatant into the arms of Hypnos rather than wait around for them to wander off. The areas in which an exchange of bullets is the only option were far from dull – the makers of XIII threw in a few brief but effective point defense scenarios to satiate my affinity for shooting galleries – but I frequently found myself wishing for a few more nice, quiet headshots with my crossbow over the shoot-first-or-die ambushes or the awful (but thankfully rare) escort jags.
After mentioning the old Batman series a few paragraphs ago, I wanted to take a moment to send some mad phat props up Adam West’s way. The guy was born to do voiceover work – case in point: the eponymous lunatic he portrays on Family Guy almost always delivers the funniest, most absurdist lines in any given episode – so the balance his General Carrington maintains between gravity and levity (overhearing him barking repeatedly about his cigars was funny without reducing the old warhorse to a silly caricature) is pitch-perfect. For that matter, Eve’s cool-handed portrayal of Major Jones also impressed me, while my boy Duchovny was just flat-out awful. A friend and I still get a lot of laughs out of several of David’s stuporous line readings, many of which might count as spoilers if repeated here, so I’ll just say that Cap’n Rowland’s wispy, ganja-slurred reactions to many of the storyline’s monumental revelations were severely understated. Since I really do like Duchovny – he did a fine job with Area 51, after all – I’ll ascribe the problem of his lackadaisical musings to the recording director and move on.
GameSpot’s score for XIII is, in my opinion, unkind. The title’s coding was pretty tight and its environments were very well realized. I actually pushed my chair back from my desk and sat marveling at the ocean view from the Sanctuary level’s dizzying promontory for several minutes, so majestic was that otherwise underused vista. The fireworks display toward the end of the game was another incidental effect that drew long, narcotic stares out of me even though I was eager to wrap up the proceedings and move on to the next adventure on my hard drive. Ubisoft did a fine job with XIII, and I recommend it for any sneaker, shooter, or graphic novel fan.