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65%
PROS
Cool graphics, fast paced, interesting comic book style gameplay, some variance in mission types.
LOWS
Multiplayer a bust, really quirky AI, horrible saving feature.
OVERALL
This funky looking game could have been a killer, but it would need quite a few patches and a slew of online gamers to get there.
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Alright so it looks cool, but does it play cool? For the most part, yes. Missions can actually be varied, going from missions where you will rely on a crossbow to make silent kills to action packed guns a firin’ missions. The big selection of weapons helps to make the game more interesting, especially when you find yourself relying on a sniper or a crossbow or shotgun in particular levels. Though the stealth missions do try hard, the AI is just not up to par to make realistic experiences, or anything like we’ve seen in Splinter Cell. Sometimes the AI will react perfectly, but quite frequently, AI may notice your presence and then just kind of wait there while you shoot at them from behind a wall. It’s not always bad though. Sometimes a guy will watch his partner die, alert others in the area, and they will all storm towards you. Still it’s nowhere near perfect.
However, the real problem with XIII is its saving interface. This really kills me when computer games just can’t work this simple issue out. When you want to save a game in XIII, it will only store back to the last “checkpoint” which can be really far from where you currently are. The “quicksave” feature saves the game in the same exact manner. Thus, there is no way to save your exact spot and then reload right to there. So stupid! Not to mention that even with the patch, the game has crashed back to my desktop at least twice and even caused me to use “the button” once. I have lost my spot in this game too many times to count, which greatly takes away from the replay value and general enjoyment it presents.
Multiplayer could have worked out, but as you can tell from my tone, it didn’t. There were two active games when I tried the online play, and one of them was private and needed a password.
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There are a bunch of different modes you can try out, but you’d need to actually have games to connect to for that. The one thing you can do is bot challenge, and play with computer AI. Keep in mind that the AI isn’t good, like I’ve said before. All in all, multiplayer is pretty worthless considering the lack of people and the hopeless AI.
XIII tried to be awesome. It did some things right, but it definitely failed in some major aspects. If the save feature was properly worked out, it could have gained back a majority of its lost points. The game is overall fast paced and fun to play, but the AI quirks will piss you off. Try it at your own risk- just because the graphics are cool, doesn’t mean the game itself is.
