XIII

The gaming industry has many trends, some of the recent popular ones being cel-shaded games and first person shooters. Surprisingly, no one has attempted to merge the two together to bring gamers a cel-shaded first person shooter, until now that is. Ubi Soft, the developers who brought us Tom Clancy’s brilliance through Splinter Cell, are getting ready to release their newest creation, XIII (thirteen).

XIII is based on a comic series written by Belgian writer Jean Van Hamme, hence the cel-shaded approach. And the series has sold over a million copies, so we can assure you this is not just any ordinary comic book based game. XIII will span a total of 33 levels broken down into thirteen chapters, and will include a wide and creative selection of weapons. There will be a total of 15 typical weapons such as knives, pistols, automatic weapons, and even sniper crossbow’s. But on top of that, you’ll also have an equal amount of “every-day” items that can be turned into harmful weapons, such as glass, chairs, and bricks.

On top of the already gorgeous visuals and environments Ubi Soft has created for XIII, the style in which they are expressed is even more interesting. You’ll notice pop-up windows displaying cool deaths or threats, and the old Batman style text pop-ups that add to the whole comic book feeling of the game, as well as give away helpful clues and hints. For example, when enemies are walking close by, and you’re quite enough, you’ll see “Tip..Tap..Tip..Tap” display wherever they’re walking. Ubi Soft is really outdoing themselves with the art direction their taking with XIII, there couldn’t have been a more suitable game that uses all the techniques and styles of animation XIII does.

Aside from its interesting visual approach though, XIII has a deep and intriguing story to back itself up. XIII’s plot is based around the assassination of President Kennedy. The story revolves around a mysterious amnesiac hero who recently just woke up on a beach with no recollection of anything, and a strange tattoo on his body entitled “XIII”. Moments after his revival back to life, he discovers he’s being blamed for the assassination of President Kennedy, and many different people are out to kill him.

XIII will have a soundtrack mainly comprised of jazz/funk style beats that is just perfect for such a title, and the audio in XIII is also shaping up very well. Aside from the already excellent voice acting, Hollywood talents such as David Duchovny (X-Files) and Adam West (TV’s Batman) will be lending their voices to characters.

XIII will also include a multiplayer component, though the other console versions will include online play, the Cube doesn’t. Which is not surprising, nonetheless, the multiplayer aspect of XIII will be just as good as the rest of the game. Offering four player split screen action in team deathmatch, capture-the-flag, and hunt modes.

Ubi Soft has been working on this ambitious title since 2001, now in its final stages, everything seems to be coming together very nicely. We can’t wait to see what this all amounts to, we really want to get down to the bottom of this huge conspiracy above anything else. But just like you, we’ll all have to wait and see how this turns out. Look for a review shortly after XIII hits stores early October.