XIII

 GameCube, XIII (2003) game

Nostalgia plays its part, no doubt, and if you have no connection to a game that can adversely affect how you perceive it - such was the case for me when I finally got around to this FPS which I'd bought some years previous, but had never played originally. I like a good shooting game with multiple objectives and a game world to explore rather than linear levels and mindless blasting, but this didn't really deliver. The 'Cube's Controller was sadly not suited to the genre which may explain why there were far fewer quality titles - only 'Turok Evolution' came close to the great games of the N64 era, with 'Timesplitters 2' providing a vast package of options. But still, for me it's down to the C-stick which replaced the C buttons of the N64 Controller: precise and immediate control of sidestepping, and by extension, circle-strafing (a key strategy), as well as the ability to tilt the view up or down, couldn't be bettered, but with the C-stick you no longer had that instant precision instead reducing movement to a drunken wobble as the stick moved up or down as well as left and right, nor was it as responsive. A game may still break through troublesome or unintuitive controls (see 'Hitman 2' on 'Cube), but it certainly reduces its potential and playability - you need to feel you have complete control of your character in life and death situations, otherwise it's the same as that feeling of unfairness you get when dropping off the side of a level in a platform game when it was the camera, or failure of controls which was responsible rather than giving you a sense of either your own skill or deficiency.

Perhaps if this game's options had allowed the controls to be mapped as a player saw fit it might have worked better, but only two control schemes are included (I opted for 'Goofy' as the only slightly less annoying one). That I'm beginning this review with such a technical examination shows how much this was a standout issue, making a big difference to me, and the truth is, coming to it new, I'd already experienced many of the innovative ideas included that may have provided more of a sense of impressive workmanship at the time of release, and which, if I'd encountered here first might have made me more generous. I don't know why I never had any interest in the game at the time, maybe it was the comic book style that had already put me off 'The Wind Waker' when what I really wanted was a more realistic 'Zelda' (and later got!), or more likely a review in NGC Magazine that wasn't as high as I might have expected. Whatever the reason, it took me until this year to play it, having previously bought it cheap on ebay, and needing something to play between matches of the World Snooker Championship I looked to that time last year's surprise success of 'Starsky & Hutch' and wanted another 'Cube title to hopefully recreate that fun experience. I had low expectations with that game since it was based on a licence, and we all know games in that position tended to be weak, so I was pleasantly surprised. The opposite was the case with 'XIII' - it, too, was based on a licenced property, a graphic novel this time, and one I knew nothing about, but I didn't exactly go in with high expectations, I just had the feeling an FPS had a good chance of being good.

Never much of a fan of cel-shading, the gimmicky stylised visuals that were having a heyday in the early 2000s, that certainly wasn't a draw to me, and I don't think it helped the game - I'd have much rather they translated the comic (if they were basing it on such subject matter), into a more realistic vision, but that was the USP they were going for, but it was entirely a gimmick: while it was useful to be able to see enemies' footsteps to know when to creep up on them unawares, the zoom-in frames showing a headshot in action was entirely unnecessary and a flamboyant addition that took me out of the moment. Fortunately, blood could be turned off so it wasn't a gory game (though weirdly, you can't turn off the swearing/blasphemy so you have something that looks pretty clean, yet has the foulest language, especially for the time, when such things weren't common, at least on Nintendo platforms), but it was counterintuitively realistic in other ways such as the lack of ammo available and the need to conserve it as much as possible, death if you fell from height, and (more understandably), not being able to carry a body or hold a hostage while holding a two-handed weapon. And yet you could sometimes shoot someone in the head and they didn't die instantly and required further shots, which is ridiculous! There was something about the whole production that didn't give me a feeling it was put together right. It discouraged me from giving it the benefit of the doubt so I was actively expecting something wrong, whether that be glitches or issues with collision detection (which I don't think I actually experienced), to the extent that when I came across the puzzle in the sanctuary caverns and you had to press a stone obelisk to open a door to progress, I thought there was something wrong with the game that when I pressed the action button and nothing happened.

Searching online I accidentally stumbled across the answer, which I'd never have looked for if I thought it was an actual puzzle rather than something wrong with the game - searching for a 'game-ending glitch' I read that there was a shape hidden in the next room which had to be inserted as a key, so I was annoyed at the game for this atmosphere of things being off since I prefer to work it all out for myself. Okay, it was my fault for failing to look around harder and come across the missing piece of the puzzle, but even so it was an annoyance. The weapons were okay, but again they tended to be very realistic in a way that didn't match with the cartoonish visual approach, so you'd fire an automatic weapon and the muzzle would pull up (no way to brace?), affecting accuracy. It was meant to be played with Auto Aim on as default, another irritation of mine since I prefer to rely on natural skill rather than making it too easy, and criminally there was no aiming reticule so you have to manoeuvre your sights over a target in the most cumbersome way - in all those old shooters like 'Goldeneye' (how long did you think it would take to mention that!), 'Perfect Dark,' even 'The World Is Not Enough' used the R-trigger to aim, but not this game. Instead (like 'TWINE' and the 'Turok' games), you have the addition of a jump button which turns things too much into a platform-gaming style when it wasn't needed - should have concentrated on the shooting, as much as I enjoyed crawling through air ducts and the like, although it was jumping across things that was the trickiest.

I will say they advanced the ideas shown in 'TWINE' to some degree: in the Bond game you had a watch grappling hook which enabled you to climb in specific locations, and so was the case here, except you could also swing, even if that did add to the platforming woes (swing too far where there's an overhang and it cuts off the connection, plunging you to your death). Not that it was a good idea, but the execution was technically impressive. If we're going to talk about the technical, I must come down on the negative side, however, and not just because it's an old game, sometimes due to bad choices: the loading times for levels were too long. The point of GameCube using the smaller in diameter optical discs as opposed to the DVDs of its contemporaries, was to reduce loading times, but it could be really frustrating, especially if you were on a bit where you had to keep going back and trying again, the bitesized combat faring badly next to long load times. Worse, there were cutscenes you couldn't skip! That's a crime, because once you've seen something once you don't need to see it again and only added to the frustration when you want to get straight back into the action where you left off. And that's another thing, the game is so linear, it's not one of those where you're let loose in a level and get to play it how you choose: you have to do it the way the game wants you to, tied so strictly to a story there's no wiggle room, so you have to keep retrying sections until you do exactly what's required to progress, causing it to have a charmless atmosphere about it.

You do have the option to save at any time, but rather than giving you a choice to go back to that exact point it's only a marker to take you to that level (with checkpoints where at least dying drops you back to them rather than the beginning of the level). Much like 'Hitman 2' the frontend shows its third-party genesis rather than having that Nintendo slickness in everything being laid out neatly and logically - you can't replay levels unless you've saved them, there's no neat list to pick from, so I did go along saving each level in case I ever did want to return to one, but the truth is, I didn't! And a good thing, too, since there were about half as many save slots as numbers of levels (the back of the game box says thirty-four), so it wasn't good planning unless it's meant only to be played all the way through, in which case why include save slots at all? You'll definitely need the first aid kits dotted around levels, but again, controls mess you up very well! You go to use a kit and regain health, only to slip on the D-pad and the game thinks you want to switch to a gadget instead of back to your weapon, so you're fighting to get a gun, all the while being shot and almost negating the first aid you've just used. Bad design. There are also the niggles of inconsistency - granted it's something of a given in most games, but it was so specific in this: one of your abilities is lock-picking and you have a tool for the job (which made me think of 'Splinter Cell,' both of a similar vintage), but you can only pick certain locks, the ones where a context-sensitive symbol appears on screen. There are plenty of doors but you have to learn to recognise which ones go somewhere and which are effectively just painted scenery.

There's also the big idea of having items lying around which can be picked up and used as weapons, or broken, and again, you can pick up some, but not others (the back of the box proudly claims you can pick up eight objects, which sounds so stingy!), so that turned out to be little more than another gimmick. It may be useful if you have no ammo left, but they're only any good in tight combat and you can also use your fists, or even better, grab someone from behind to use as a shield. That was a better idea, although again, I'd experienced similar things in 'Splinter Cell' and 'Hitman 2.' I don't know how long the graphic novel had been around, but this game seemed to draw inspiration from other games, as I've mentioned, or films like 'The Bourne Identity' which would have been fresh in people's minds at that time. The first Bourne story was written in the Eighties, at most, so I'm sure that goes back further, and you can argue that spy stories, amnesia, all that kind of stuff isn't anything new anyway, borrowing from each other as a genre, but the use here didn't strike me as fresh or original in any way, 'XIII' just didn't have the flair of its apparent inspirations. Strangely, the longer I played the game the more I saw parallels to 'TWINE' - not just the jump ability or mostly linear levels, but even the locations themselves: early on you're in a bank and have to fight your way out, you're running around in the woods, sneaking aboard a submarine later in the game, even battling a helicopter! Again, these are all things that can be traced to the genre's genetic memory, but it was all so specific, and 'TWINE' had only come out three years before... Unlike that superb game there was no incentive to replay, no chance of bettering your accuracy, completion time, score, it really gives the impression of being a singular experience rather than something to dip into when you feel like it, no room to explore and examine.

The story was pretty uninteresting to be honest, not something where I'd want to search out the original source material because I was so impressed - I believe there was a film or a TV series, maybe both, based on this, trying to turn it into a franchise, but you need more content than what this was giving. Maybe the original story was great, but it didn't translate all that well into game form - you can see the beginnings of games trying to edge into film territory with the narrative apparently the most important thing about it all, and a voice cast that included actual 'names,' but the point of a game is to experience the freedom and variety you don't get in real life, not just a story you watch unfold, and in that regard this one falls short. I was amazed to discover the guy voicing XIII himself, the character you're playing, was from David Duchovny - not that I care about the actor or have watched his work, but for such a well known actor I really felt it was one of those 'phoned in' performances where all the way through I was thinking 'this guy isn't up to much,' only to discover it was a proper actor behind it! Adam West was a bit better as your superior, General Carrington, though I'd never have guessed it was him until the credits. Even the voices were better in 'Starsky & Hutch,' which just goes to show you can't judge something based on it being a licence or not, though they tend to have less chance of being good.

In the interests of completeness, I did try out the multiplayer which caters for full bot support, which was nice (although I think 'Timesplitters 2' already did that, and certainly 'TWINE'), though there weren't a huge number of options - I did like The Hunt mode where you're chasing down a creepy Grim Reaper figure that gets smaller every time it's shot and kills you instantly if you touch it, but was disappointed that all the levels I played were specifically for multiplayer, based on the game's environments, rather than adapting actual in-game levels. Perhaps it would have provided some fun with human participants, I don't know, though the control issues would always be there. I'm not saying I had no enjoyment of the game at all, it was reasonably competent and there were certain areas that were either challenging in a good way or where I admired the scenery: the twisting ravines out in the desert, the confines of the submarine, the hedge maze gardens were quite beautiful... and I have happy memories of playing certain parts, like the snowy exterior before the cable car, though nothing stood out as being amazing and memorable in the way earlier N64 entries in the FPS genre were so successful. They were a high bar that was set for me and nothing has come close to them (I know how good they remain as I've replayed them all this decade).

There is the addition of trying to track down all the evidence, with little packages or files left in certain parts of levels throughout the game, and I did enjoy that extra task, though I didn't give it much mind at first which may be why I was missing one piece at the end (unless this is a glitch since I found something in the final level, yet still had an empty slot), but it wasn't enough to make me want to replay it again on a harder difficulty. The stop-start nature of the gameplay was bad enough at the standard difficulty, too many times having to restart sections or a level and sit through the same dialogue and action. I think it's just a game of its time that wasn't quite as innovative as it may have seemed. The passage of time tends to root out the flaws in games and make them much clearer, although saying that I now want to go back and read what NGC said about it - it may be they saw it for what it was back then, maybe why I never wanted to pay full whack for it? It didn't live up to my hopes as a suitable April/May snooker substitute so next year I'll have to be more careful in my choices - eventually I did get to the stage where I wanted to get back to it rather than finding it a bit of a chore to get into, but never enough that I'll be thinking happily of it for years to come. I wouldn't say it's bad enough that I want Number XIII's amnesia, but I think it would take that for me to play it again!

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