Carried by a successful comic book, the XIII of 2003 rather left good memories to the players, because of its judicious mix between action and infiltration, of its aesthetic BD pushed to the end and its suspenseful scenario. So many qualities which, seventeen years later, could have been found intact, even sublimated, in a remake worthy of the name. Unfortunately, this new version does not really meet the criteria. Moreover, Microids recently cracked a message of apologies about the state of the game, along with promises of saving patches. We therefore decided to wait a few days before carrying out our test, in case a miraculous patch arrives to save the product. In vain…
Before loading the mule and pulling the ambulance, let’s recall some fundamentals regarding the scenario of XIII. We play a hero with amnesia, accused of having assassinated the President of the United States and wearing a tattoo “XIII” on the left collarbone. Little by little, 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 sheltering 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 on the merits. Thus, the scenario, the gameplay and the different levels are taken almost identically. This fidelity ensures a good balance between action and infiltration, since this was the case of the game of 2003. We thus find the pleasure of assassinating in all discretion our enemies using throwing knives, crossbow-sniper or pistol with silencer. From time to time, it is allowed to let off steam and make the powder talk, 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 small effect. Thus, the path all in autumn foliage which leads to the sanctuary or the rays of the sun which illuminate the snowy landscapes is not lacking in charm.
In addition, the character design of the main characters has been revised, so as to better correspond with the comic book. XIII and Major Jones are thus much more like their paper counterparts than before. Oddly, these graphics improvements go hand in hand with a number of downgrades. The snowflakes swayed by the wind which embellished certain levels, for example, have completely disappeared. Even more embarrassing, the game moves away from the comic book 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 less onomatopoeias that appear on the screen, and the cel-shading line has notably lost in thickness. . Artistic direction therefore becomes more generic and less striking. But we will see that there are unfortunately still many other things to reproach the game …
XIII BUGS BY THE DOZEN
It’s quite 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 (including the time lost fighting against certain bugs) with a final script that does not trigger and which therefore prevents the display of the final dialogue and the end credits. Fortunately we have the memories of 2003 to complete the adventure in our minds and counter this final arm of honor to the player. This is not the only time when our memories have proved useful. Imagine that two inter-mission cutscenes have simply disappeared from the remake! A novice will therefore have no idea of the why and how of the current objectives. History to lose even more the poor innocents who would have had the misfortune to buy their production, the developers have also succeeded in sabotaging 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 bad overall, 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 start to sizzle horribly while, at other times, a whole lot of music and sound effects are missing. Obviously, we also have to deal with many graphical bugs. Some are benign, like this tutorial message which remains indefinitely displayed on the screen and which obliges to reload a control point, this message “level finished” which appears while enemies are still in the process of blasting us, these elements which float instead of resting on the ground, this policeman suspended in the air as if by magic, or the door lock which appears in the middle of the screen rather than on the lock. Do you want more ? No problem, the stock is almost unlimited! Weapon selection crashes at times, some alerts go off completely unjustifiably in infiltration (more annoying than that, you die), and some enemies react at the speed of the asthmatic snail when one of their colleagues dies under their control. eyes. The palm of the ridiculous also goes to the death of the soldiers, which takes place far too slowly. They almost fall in slow motion with, icing on the cake, a brief stint in a fighting pose totally inappropriate for someone just getting shot in the head. Collision bugs are also part of the game, whether they are enemies passing through walls, corpses half-sunk in the ground, stiffs seized with tremors, characters disfigured by hideous colored lines. which emerge from their heads, or from soldiers who wield their batons 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 in-house captures, in order to find some of the previously mentioned bugs. Better to laugh …
