XIII (2020)

Review

President Sheridan has been assassinated and the American people can’t believe what just happened. The entire country is gobsmacked! Who would want to kill the well-beloved President? Well, holding the office of Leader of the Free World has its . . . how can we put it . . . deadly downside.  As the FBI tries to figure out who is behind the assassination, you wake up somewhere on a beach with a dreadful headache, and you don’t seem to recall who you are or what happened to you.  The only hint you have is the tattoo on your upper left Pectoral muscle and that everyone is after you. That’s a good start, shall we say?! Good luck to you XIII!

XIII (2020) is a remake if the iconic (2003) action/first-person shooter game. This version was developed by PlayMagic and Published by Microids on the Steam platform on 11^th of November 2020. The game is also available on PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.

Before I start this review, I would like to mention that I am a very big fan of XIII; I purchased the original game in 2003 on it’s release day and also purchased the game (XIII Classic) when it hit the Steam store a few months back. I also vividly remember the bugs that the 2003 game had, and the first big one was at the bank level where the game crashed over and over again. Those days, we didn’t have Steam or other platforms with automatic updates, and it took a couple of months to have a decent patch. Nonetheless, I stuck by the game and I am glad I did!

This version consists of a campaign of 16 levels which you can play in one of four levels of difficulty, and a multiplayer mode which I couldn’t access. The multiplayer mode seems to have three maps and you can play a deathmatch or a team deathmatch.

What I really like in this version is that the developers were faithful to the plot, the graphic style (which is now better) and all the weapons of the original. Each level has a few collectibles to acquire, in the form of dossiers and golden statuettes, which are cleverly hidden somewhere around the level; so make sure you explore every corner to find them.

I actually finished the game in the normal difficulty mode and started another game on the next level of difficulty, and I must say the game should have been pushed back due to the sheer number of issues I encountered.

In regards to the audio, it seemed to work fine until I reached the Kellownee Lake stage, when the audio started having some sort of a fit . . . it was all over the joint! The weapons started to shudder and in the middle of it I heard footsteps and god knows what else was in there. I had to shut down the game and restart it.  This occurred randomly several times. The frame rate dropped on and off, which is also frustrating to say the least. In terms of weapons, well, I had my fair share of frustrations especially when I couldn’t reload my gun or when I needed to sneak my way through and use my knives to kill enemies (I had a bad case of superglue fingers on the steel blade!). To be honest, it didn’t matter too much, as the enemy’s AI kept performing some sort of dance before attacking me (still trying to figure out if it was the Tango or the Lambada)! In any case, I had enough time to swap weapons.

It is such a shame because the original was a great game and I have no doubt the developers will fix these issues as fast as they can. But I must say that I was bitterly disappointed, and it might have been better to push back the release date to fix these major issues prior to the launch. Despite this, I still believe XIII (2020) will improve with each update to give us what we deserve from this great title.

What I really appreciate from Microids is the fact that they have posted an apology and are listening to the community, and I commend them for that. Yes, the pandemic might have created delays, but you surely knew these issues when you released the game.

Review written by THE CPT FROGGY for Zeepond.com