XIII Critic Reviews

A truly dazzling, inspired game that mixes a riveting story with a stylish look and absorbing gameplay.

XIII may not 'revolutionise' the genre, but it certainly tips its hat to some revolutionary (FPS) elements, including the platformesque addition of the grapnel and...an obeisance to singing soldiers.

It combines cell shading, a comic book look and feel, and a somewhat intriguing story line that will keep you wanting to play just so you can see what really happened to you.

An excellent game that earns bonus points for doing something new, but it ultimately falls just a splinter short of greatness.

First and foremost, you're going to get your hands on some cracker-jack weaponry, both firearm and silent. Each weapon has a standard and secondary fire, which depending on the weapon is pretty cool.

With a convoluted, twisting conspiracy-driven story, flashy graphics and exciting gameplay, XIII demands your money.

It's not too often a game comes around that breathes new life into a genre. But I think that's just what XIII has done. With a little creativity and determination, Ubisoft has succeeded in creating an interactive comic book.

While it’s not as highly innovative as it was meant to be, XIII on the Xbox is still an addictive action-noir first-person shooter with a lot of style.

Fortunately for XIII, it doesn’t fail at all and it creates a very compelling game by adding new elements like cel-based shading and an off-beat soundtrack.

A flawed masterpiece. A game brimming with variety and a freshness lacking from most of the factory farmed franchise exercises that pass through our offices with crushing regularity.

Has a great story-driven sheen, but at it's core, it's weighed down by some occasional bewildering flaws, in addition to the lackluster weapons and simple combat we usually see in lesser productions.

We also love the fact that many of the in-world objects can be used as weapons (chairs, ashtrays, spades) and that you can take hostages, releasing them after a incapacitating squeeze to the throat.

Thrill-seekers in search of a stylized 3-D shooter with a compelling story will find plenty of both in Ubi Soft's XIII.

And with the engaging story, plus the graphic-novel presentation (boxes of action and text are constantly popping up on-screen), this truth is worth uncovering.

Once you look through the cel-shaded visuals, professional voice acting, and graphic novel presentation and effects, you are left with a pretty standard shooter that doesn’t really innovate or improve upon the genre.

An extremely stylistic experiment with a well-tailored story and high production values that offers us a glimpse of what lies ahead in gaming, but overwhelmingly shows that we still have a long way to go.

A more general problem is that the gameplay doesn't do much new, or even contemporary for that matter. You do the general flip-switching and item collecting types of missions, and your firepower is very typical.

While I wish the multiplayer offered more, as it would no doubt extend the title's replay value, it's just not exciting enough given the current number of quality online action titles on the Xbox. The single-player experience is enjoyable, if not revolutionary.

The hero is voiced by former "X-Files" star David Duchovny whose deadpan delivery is mostly forgettable.

I, like many others, get tired of the same old weapons and the same old shooting sequences with the only delta being changing environments.