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.

A competent shooter with some stealth mixed in and great visual style. Unfortunately it has various pain points which keep it from being great.

Positives:
- Great visual design inspired by comics. The illustrated sound effects are a nice touch.
- Jazzy soundtrack reminiscent of spy thrillers.
- Large level variety ranging from snowy mountains, desert, submarine, military base, etc.

Neutral
- Shooting gameplay is alright. There is a large variety of weapons. Guns don't feel very powerful possibly due to sound design and hit feedback. Enemy AI isn't that great and they usually just stay still and shoot.
- Stealth sections can be fun if they are your cup of tea. I enjoyed them but there can be a lot of trial and error. The AI also isn't great in this aspect. The limit of their vision and hearing can be inconsistent and hard to pinpoint.
- Cliffhanger ending which wouldn't be a problem if we actually got a proper sequel.
- Voice acting. Adam West is great but David Duchovny sounds like a robot.

Negative
- Bosses are terrible bullet sponges that just run around and shoot at you. It's also pretty jarring to go from mowing down soldiers to having to empty clips into some old dude.
- There is a save system but you will just load in the beginning of the level instead of where you saved. There is also no autosave.
- Few checkpoints with some being terribly placed. Had a few instances where I died after beating a boss after multiple attempts with no checkpoint in between. Dying 5 minutes into a level just to have to rewatch unskippable cutscenes, wait for characters to finish conversations and repeat all you just did is pure agony.

In the end I had a good time, but with just a few tweaks the game could have been great. It's very disappointing that the remake couldn't deliver on that.

Once upon a time, Ubisoft knew how to make interesting and original shooters. A classic game with the most original comic book narrative, where each explosion creates a large cloud with KABOOM and each deadly, precise blow to the head was duplicated with inserts of hit frames in zoom mode.

Когда то Ubisoft, умели делать интересные и оригинальные шутеры. Игровая классика с самым оригинальным комиксовым повествованием где от каждого взрыва вырисовывается большое облачко с KABOOM и каждый смертельный, точный удар к голову дублировался вставками кадров попадания в режиме приближения.

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.

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