Let’s address the elephant in the room first. The remake of XIII came out two years ago and it was absolutely decimated by both users and critics across the board. It was buggy, had broken multiplayer, and ditched the comic book style of the original for a much less appealing CGI aesthetic. It turned players off so much that the game has only a 39% on Metacritic and Google has it listed at 1.8/5. For those of you that didn’t play the original when it came out in 2003, it was a uniquely styled FPS based on a French spy comic. The plot is fun, the dialogue is decent, and the voice acting is excellent, with XIII being voiced by none other than David Duchovny of X-Files fame. Sure, it was a bit hokey and the AI left something to be desired but it was a fun game, even if it wasn’t widely noticed by gamers or even critics.
Fast forward to 2022 and now we’ve got a full remake of the game for modern systems. Putting aside the disastrous initial launch, publisher Microids and developers PlayMagic and Tower Five have rebuilt XIII to run properly on modern systems and it’s a huge improvement from the original build! Most noticeable of course are the visuals, ditching the overly realistic look and creating a fusion cel-shading style that’s somewhere in between the original source and the much-loathed CGI in a way that still feels modern and faithful to the 2003 release.
Assuming you’ve never played XIII, never read the comic, and never watched the movie with Val Kilmer and Stephen Dorff, you’d probably like to know what you’re getting into though. Basically, this is an old-school spy thriller complete with assassinations, hidden black sites, secret identities, and of course, psychotic madmen hell-bent on destroying the good old US of A. Classic stuff that’s always a good time. You play XIII, a spy who’s part of a conspiracy to take down the government, although there’s certainly more than meets the eye going on here. Hunted down by portions of the conspiracy, you’ll find yourself washed up on a beach with amnesia, a rather inconvenient position for a covert operative to be in.
Fortunately, you don’t have to wait long to find out what’s going on and in true video game fashion, kill or knock out anyone that moves! This is an FPS after all, and cel-shading and comic panels aside, most of what you’re doing is taking out everyone that’s trying to kill you in increasingly unrealistic situations. XIII is fun because it doesn’t take itself too seriously. You can sneak right up on skilled FBI agents and enemy operatives alike, dropping them messily with no one the wiser. There’s a rudimentary stealth system built into the game, but the key word there is rudimentary. It works pretty well with the crossbow though, as you can see.
XIII tries to be a stealth action game, it really does. There are awareness sensors on the enemies, places you can stop them from accessing the alarms, stealth kills that let you sneak by. Unfortunately, due to the AI design, timing issues, and the age of the source material, it doesn’t really work out that way. Sure, you can sneak up on the occasional scripted enemy. But try it with other groups and you’re spotted almost instantly. Your crouch speed is glacial and if you stand up the enemies spot you rapidly. Sneaking up just takes to look and walking is too loud, meaning that if you try to creep through to waylay an enemy, you’re virtually guaranteed to be spotted. Heck, if none of that works, just take a hostage! Just don’t kill them, it’s all for show!
All that really means is that going in guns blazing is way more effective here and more fun too! XIII has noticeably weak AI whose shots are pretty equivalent to Star Wars stormtroopers. That means you can run right up to enemy combatants without dying and blow them away. Most of your weapons are ranged and pretty powerful from a distance as well, allowing you to take the offensive early and often. Sniping is extremely effective, even with handguns and assault rifles and the overall feel of the combat is a FPS-lite vibe that’s designed to carry the story rather than a serious tactical affair.
While the mechanics are meant to be fun, the AI (at least on normal) doesn’t present much of a problem. That was one of the chief complaints about the original remake a couple of years ago, and if we’re being entirely honest, it hasn’t changed much. Enemies are not very bright, often running around panicked if they can’t see you when someone dies and they don’t try very hard to catch you even if you’re spotted. Unless you run into a corner or directly into a huge group of enemies, you’ll be all right. Even enemies armed with shotguns won’t take you out in a single shot, so running up while reloading and taking your time to aim usually isn’t a risk, except with machine guns.
Ample weapons and ammo are also available and you won’t be running low on bullets or arrows very often (the cross bow is easily the most fun weapon) unless you spray-and-pray constantly. Headshots even give a fun little comic book panel graphic that fits well with the theme of the game. You likely won’t run out of health either, as long as you’re paying attention and explore all the rooms. In fact, the only slightly irritating thing about XIII in regards to weaponry is that when you start a new level, you’re zeroed out and have to find new equipment again. Even the starting equipment for each level is usually pretty good but it’s still sad to see all that work go down the tubes for nothing.
The visuals were one of the original selling points of the game, and as mentioned, the previous incarnation of the remake was widely reviled. This newly-remastered version incorporates thicker links and a more distinctly comic-book style which borders on cel shading. If you played the original XIII back in the day, it’ll evoke fond memories of that game’s unique style. The game feels much like a comic book most of the time and includes a plethora of panels (yeah, that’s some Stan Lee level alliteration) and comic book cut scenes that feel refreshing in an era of ultra-realism and also pay tribute to the original source material.
The music was also excellent on the original release, feeling much like a feature length spy movie soundtrack with some funky 70s riffs thrown in here and there. The original game actually shipped with preorder CDs of the soundtrack and some of us still have them lying around because the music was just fun. Much like the voice work, the soundtrack has been preserved in its entirely here. Fully voiced games were something of a rarity at that time and the spoken dialogue is a bit cheesy and stilted but it’s fun and holds up fairly well. Sure, the caricatures of generals and spies are a bit off the rails, but they’re fun and hold fast to the overall theme of the game.
There’s a 2-13 player multiplayer mode incorporated here as well, but it was not played during the course of this review. While it was included in the original game, multiplayer was initially not in the remake in 2020. That has been remedied, but this is still a game that’s primarily designed to be a long single player campaign experience and you will need an online service on your console in order to play multiplayer if you’re thoroughly enamoured with the game and its style.
In short, Microids and Tower Five have fixed most all of the problems with the abysmal 2020 remake of XIII and brought out an excellent remake of a fun and little-known title from the early ‘00s. Their effort seems to have been worthwhile because the smooth transition to modern control schematics, seamless HD visuals, and excellent delivery of the original all blend together to create a game that’s a joy to play. The gameplay is a bit lighter than some might wish for, but the story more than makes up for it, even if it does feel like it could be an alternate current reality with the way politics are sitting these days. That’s certainly not the fault of the game though, as it was written before some players were even born! Either way, with fully implemented multiplayer, a long campaign mode, great music and voicework, and unique visuals, XIII is certainly worth your time now and deserving of a better rating than the holdover ones from the previous release. If you love spy thrillers, comics, and FPS mayhem, XIII is the game to play!
This review is based on a digital copy of XIII provided by the publisher. It was played on an Xbox Series X using a 55” Sony 1080p TV. XIII is also available for PS4/5, Switch, and PC on Steam, GOG, and Amazon.