Nostalgia Sunday: XIII

XIII

This was a great game for me back in the day. The comic look was cool and multiplayer was really fun, even if only two people were playing. The story was interesting and compelling. I would have finished the game, wouldn't it have been for a part in the game, where I had to hide and always got spotted, making me hate this game. Weird.

The Story:

You, XIII, wake up on a beach, with no memory of anything. While trying to recover, people arrive with a helicopter and guns, trying to kill you. The only thing to do, is to defend yourself and find out, what has happened, that erased your memory. If I told you more, it would destroy the meaning of finding out, what XIII forgot. The story is good and is adapted from the comic book series with the same name "XIII". The game though only consists of the first 15 issues of the comic book.

The Game:

The picture above already shows the comic book look, or so called cel-shading. When something explodes, or someone is walking towards you, the sounds will be visualised, just like in comic books, with a "BLAM" or "KABOOM". Other than that, it is a normal first person shooter. What most other games might not have, is the type of armor you can wear, being a helmet and a vest, which can be picked up from dead enemies, or other places. The levels vary all from the other, while XIII tries to find out, what has happened to him. Apart from the singleplayer, there is also the multiplayer, giving you the traditional game modes like Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch or Capture the Flag, and console specific game modes like Sabotage (Xbox, PC), The Hunt (PC, PS2, Gamecube)and Power-Up (PC, PS2).

Prequels and Sequels:

While the game XIII got fairly good reviews, it wasn't a financial success, so no real sequels were made. The only thing that came out and called itself "XIII 2", was a cellphone game. Eight years later though, the publisher Anuman released a adventure game under the name "XIII: Lost Identity". Rather than a sequel, it was a reimagining in point and click style. I never knew it existed and most people propably didn't too. I don't know how successful it was, but I think, it wasn't that much.
Check out the launch trailer here:

While I don't have this game for the PS2 anymore, I have it for the PC. I played it some time ago, but haven't since. I definatly enjoyed it.