XIII is suprisingly good for a 2003 ubisoft stealth shooter.

The cast is lead by David Duchovny and Adam West. The comic book cel-shading is evocative and charming. The music is regularly entertaining.

But the game just doesn't come together.

Both West and Duchovny deliver lines in a bored monotone - there's a reason Actors and Voice Actors are often considered distinct categories. They're distinct skills!
The shooting is above-average for 2003, but clunky and irritating for 2022.
The checkpoint system is often infuriating.
The stealth is wonky and underdeveloped.
The narrative ends on a cliffhanger and a "To be continued" that has never been resolved.

There's a good game in here. It's just buried under mediocrity.

A poorly implemented save function and checkpoint system can ruin some of the enjoyment people who play for the first time may have.
The level design is pretty linear.
There are some technical issues and bugs but most of those can be fixed with unofficial patches.
Gameplay is fun and has variety. A lot of levels require trial and error to beat. The last few levels can be on the more grueling side.
The Graphics and story can be described as a comic book version of John Wick and James Bond.
An overall solid game with some unfortunate issues.

Fantastic game. The art style really holds up and makes it stand out among it's 6th gen shooter peers. The gun play all of the guns feel great to use, especially the crossbows and shot guns. The one exception I found to that, however, is the AR and Uzi stand in. both weapons sound and look great, just are not accurate in the slightest, pretty much having to be point blank to get any real damage in. The levels are also really fun; taking elements from the likes of Goldeneye/Time Splitters, albeit slightly more linear. The bosses are probably the worst parts of the game by far. The first is fine enough, it just asks you to avoid the doctors projectile syringes like that one Wolfenstein 3D boss. But the others are all just hitscan shoot em till they die, and are also somehow way more accurate than you with the same guns. The only other complaint I have is the lack of auto save; there are checkpoints throughout the levels, but the player has to manually save in the menu in order to save progress. Which is fine on paper, but unlike other games that use a similar method, the game never prompts you to save at the end of a level. So, if your game crashes once or twice like mine did, you're sent back to your last save like six missions back. Overall, though, XIII is a great game with fun gun play, an intriguing story, and an aesthetic that looks great even today.

Remember when video games were hilariously cheeky and Hollywood wouldn't touch them with a 12 foot pole? XIII harkens back to those days with a smile. Goofy voice actors, not too overwhelming controls and stealth, and a rocking soundtrack.

The fan-made patch is a must, and the guide for enhanced graphics settings will help the visuals not stick out as much.

Oh, and remember to save your game. The autosave feature is notoriously unreliable.

Having 0 nostalgia connection to this game really made it easy for me to see the huge amount of wasted potantial and basic boring gameplay loop this game has. And not to mention non-functional stealth and the plain ridiculous way this game handles checkpoints (you died? lmao watch this 4 minute cutscene again lol). Combined with the single most boring way you can write a story about government conspiracy and the fact that it ends on a cliffhanger with no existing sequel, this game is simply not worth a playthrough. If you want a good linear FPS game, just play Half-Life. If you want a good conspiracy plot with stealth gameply, just play Deus Ex.

Gameplay - 9
Trilha Sonora - 8
Gráficos - 9
História - 9

Nota - 8.75

XIII é um jogo bem divertido, suas missões extremamente lineares e personagens cativantes conseguem dar ainda mais brilho ao enredo que possui muita influência do estilo James Bond e No One Lives Forever.

Uma pena o sistema de save ser um completo fracasso. Você pode salvar quantas vezes quiser e o jogo sempre vai te levar para o início da fase ou para duas fases anteriores, o que se torna ainda pior quando morremos depois de matar um "chefe", pois é obrigatório voltar toda a batalha novamente.

Apesar disso, valeu muito a pena aproveitar um pouquinho mais dos clássicos, uma pena não poder dizer o mesmo do horrível remake.

I don't know if it's the "Ubisoft effect", but this game is actually very cheap in France because it seems a lot of people bought it at the time. Everytime I see a PS2 for sale, it has XIII as one of the 4/5 games accompaning it.

I never heard of XIII before buying it for 2€ and playing it. It was way better than I'd thought. The game's all in pace. You move fast, you shoot fast, and the art direction + sound design gives you clear feedbacks as for when an enemy dies.

The game loves diversity : infiltrations sequences, timed sequences, plateform sequances, tower defense sequences, light puzzles sequences... You never got bored with XIII. You might instead get frustrated during very few moments, when the game's a bit tough or when something isn't clearly indicated and your softlocked but these kind of moments are rare.

I must point out the quality of level design. The notable exception is the last infiltration sequence which is... Absolutely awful. This game moment aside, there are so much ideas in XIII's levels that you might want to replay it. Guns distribution through levels is great, challenges and objectives are diversified. I must specificaly point out the surgeons' lair, the canyon and the church as the best levels in the game.

P.S: The OST is certainly one of the best ever integrated gameplay-wise to an action game.

I don't normally care much for linear, story driven shooters so maybe it's the nostalgia talking, but I really like XIII. The commitment to the comic book style makes it still look unique and great with all the sound effect texts and picture in picture moments, the guns for the most part feel really satisfying to use and the pacing and the mission/map variety are excellent. And most surprisingly, the stealth sections are actually good which you wouldn't expect from a shooter like this. Good stealth weaponry, stylish footstep indicators and lenient enough AI go a long way.

The only real criticism I have is that some of the checkpoints are a bit too long and at least on the highest difficulty towards the end taking cheap shots from cover becomes too necessary.

My first PS2 game ever. It took me like a year to beat it as a kid because i sucked so fucking much. Good thing too because it was my only game for a looooooooooong time.
I remember getting stuck for an eternity in the snow level and the church.
The cliffhanger ending pissed me off so much back then. i spent so much time on it only for the game to end like that.

On replay like two years ago i beat it in two sittings it was easy as fuck lmao