XIII is a cel-shaded first-person shooter based on a long-running French comic book of the same name written by William Vance and Jean Van Hamme. For those of you who are not familiar with the XIII comic, the comic features a conspiracy ridden story which includes themes of amnesia, in which you must uncover sinister plots against yourselves, the U.S. government, and even the president himself. You begin as XIII, waking up on a beach located on the East Cost of the United States. You have been shot in the head, rendering you with amnesia. The only clues to your identity are the number XIII, in roman numerals, tattooed on your shoulder, and a key to a New York bank safe deposit box. You as XIII must uncover not only your identity, but you must also prevent a mysterious group from destroying the US government.

The gameplay involves mostly what you'd expect from a first-person shooter, there's similar weaponry and nothing really exceptional or innovative. There are armor power-ups, health, a grappling hook, and you'll use keys and keycards to access closed off doors and elevators. As usual in these games, you're going to zillion people before you get your problems sorted out. Fortunately, the game does add some variety in the form of unique missions, gadgets and weapons to use along the way. Guards can be used as human shields, broken bottles and chairs can be used as weapons and you'll have lock picks and grappling hooks, to name a few, to help your progress. There are several stealth-themed sections of the game, as well as other, more "run-and-gun" portions.

There are 13 different chapters in the game (~over 37 maps) set in both the indoors to outdoors. Weapons include the following - Knife, 9mm Pistol, Grenade, 44 Special, Hunting gun, Shotgun, Harpoon Launcher, Crossbow, Mini Gun, Kalash, Assault Rifle, SMG, Bazooka and Sniper Rifle. Aside from the single-player campaign, the game also offers multiplayer modes such as DM, TDM, CTF, and Sabotage (class-based team game where you defend or attack a series of checkpoints, depending on which side you're on) through UbiSoft Game Service or Local Network. There's no doubt that the multiplayer component is a decent addition.

Although XIII don't offer much new, XIII's graphical style is a big reason to play the game. The cel-shading works well with the Unreal engine and the cel-shaded characters contrasted against the realistic background give the game a nice comic effect. In other words, the cel-shading is a perfect fit. If you love comics and straightforward first-person shooters with some decent stealth elements, you'll get your money's worth out of XIII. Download & try these playable single / multiplayer demos and decide yourself.

System Requirements:
Minimum: Processor 700 MHz Pentium III or equivalent, 128MB RAM, 3D accelerator video card with DirectX 8.1 support and 32 MB, DirectX-compatible 16- bit sound card, 120MB free HDD space, 56,6 Kbps/TCP/IP for multiplayer

Recommended: Processor 1GHz or better, 256MB RAM, 3D accelerator video card with 64 MB, DirectX-compatible 16- bit sound card, 120MB free HDD space, ADSL 512/128 kb/s connection for multiplayer