Before loading the mule and shooting the ambulance, let's recall some basics regarding the scenario of XIII. It embodies an amnesiac hero, accused of having assassinated the President of the United States and wearing a tattoo "XIII" on the left collarbone. One thing leading to another, the hero learns a little more about who he really is, and discovers the existence of a secret organization made up of twenty members, each of them hiding his identity behind a Roman number. The political thriller atmosphere works quite well, and this remake has the intelligence not to seek to distort the original experience in substance. Thus, the scenario, the gameplay and the different levels are repeated almost identically. This fidelity ensures a good balance between action and infiltration, since such was the case of the 2003 game. We therefore find the pleasure of assassinating our enemies in all discretion using throwing knives, crossbow-sniper or a gun fitted with a silencer. From time to time, it is allowed to let off steam and make the powder speak, machine guns, shotguns and other rocket launchers also being part of the game. Naturally, the graphics have been improved and it must be recognized that certain panoramas have their little effect. Thus, the path all in autumn foliage which leads to the sanctuary or the rays of the sun which illuminate the snowy landscapes are not lacking in charm.
In addition, the character design of the main characters has been revised, so as to better correspond with the comics. XIII and Major Jones thus look much more like their paper counterparts than before. Oddly, these graphical improvements go hand in hand with a number of downgrades. The snowflakes swayed by the wind that embellished certain levels, for example, have completely disappeared. Even more embarrassing, the game moves away from the cartoon effects that gave it so much character. The appearances of white borders simulating comic strip boxes are less numerous, the cutscenes also offer less division into boxes, there are fewer onomatopoeias that appear on the screen, and the cel-shading line has notably lost its thickness . The artistic direction therefore becomes more generic and less striking. But we will see that there are unfortunately still many other things to blame for the game...
XIII BUGS BY THE DOZEN
It's very simple, the level of finish of the product is simply shameful. It all starts from the first seconds, when we see the lifeguard who has just saved us teleport for a moment. And the ordeal ends after nine hours (counting the time lost fighting against certain bugs) with a final script which does not start and which therefore prevents the display of the final dialogue and the end credits. Fortunately, we still have the memories of 2003 to complete the adventure in our minds and counter this final arm of honor given to the player. This isn't the only time our memories have come in handy, either. Imagine that two inter-mission cinematic scenes have simply disappeared from the remake! A novice will therefore have no idea of the why and how of the objectives in progress. History of losing even more the poor innocents who would have had the misfortune to buy their production, the developers also managed to sabotage a major cinematic, which appears here completely silent, without music or any dialogue (and without subtitles). Good job guys !
Besides, let's talk about the audio… The sound mix is generally bad, with voices that are too loud or inaudible. Worse still, from about halfway through the adventure, the audio layer lets go and goes completely into a spin. All the sounds begin to sizzle horribly while, at other times, a whole lot of music and sound effects are missing. Of course, we also have to deal with many graphical bugs. Some are benign, like that tutorial message that stays onscreen indefinitely and forces you to reload a checkpoint, that "level complete" message that pops up while enemies are still shooting at us, those things that float instead of resting on the ground, this policeman suspended in the air as if by magic, or even the picking of the doors which is displayed in the middle of the screen rather than on the lock. Do you want more ? No problem, the stock is almost unlimited! Weapon select crashes at times, some alerts go off totally unnecessarily in infiltration (more infuriating than that, you die), and some enemies react at asthmatic snail speed when one of their coworkers dies under their eyes. The palm of ridicule goes to the death of the soldiers, which takes place far too slowly. They fall almost in slow motion with, icing on the cake, a brief stint in a totally inappropriate fighting pose for someone just taken in the head. Collision bugs are also part of the game, whether it's enemies that pass through walls, corpses half buried in the ground, stiff bodies shaking, characters disfigured by ugly colored lines that spring from their heads, or even soldiers who wield their truncheons from a distance, the latter having decided to fly a meter from their hand. We strongly advise you not to buy this alpha version which does not say its name, and rather encourage you to look carefully at our home captures, just to find some of the bugs mentioned above. Better laugh it off...
