Cel-Shaded Shooter

In the hierarchy of gaming fans, I suppose the apex individual is the almighty game developer. They constantly come up with new ideas, innovative features, cool stories, and countless ways to kill time. Great game developers are sort of the Holy Grail of the gaming world. What is truly refreshing is to see a title produced that does so much, with so little pretense or attitude. It almost seems to be laughing at itself. Of course, you could say that it’s because of its basis in the world of European comic books … But, regardless of what reason you come up with, XIII is a remarkable breath of fresh air.

Get a load of those graphics.

When we got a chance to sit down privately with XIII, there were a number of things that we all thought. The most common thing we said, the one thing that dominated everything else, was a simple exclamation of “Cool!” Everything we did seemed to uncover another fun little feature that earned yet another exclamation. I know you’re sick of hearing me tell you that it’s cool, so I’ll get on with it and tell you why it’s so much fun. For starters, the art is so different from what first-person-shooter players have come to expect. Cel-shading isn’t a style that is used very often. That doesn’t make it bad, or inferior, or lame … Nope, that just means not very many people do it. The result is, you have a first-person shooter that looks like no other. Usually, when you see something that is this drastically different, it is a bit less refined than one might hope for. That isn’t the case here. Ubi Soft decided to build XIII around the next generation of theUnreal game engine, but use the cel-shaded art style. The results are something that catches you totally off guard, but works beautifully. That earned it more than a few “Cool!” points in my book.

Once you get used to the cel shading, you realize that there is a lot more to the artistic style of this game than just that. This game is most definitely based on a comic book, and it isn’t going to let you forget it—not for a second. Not only do you get the standard sound effects and animations, but you also get these hysterical (at least to me they were) little pop-ups with text animations for the sound, just like you would see in a comic book. Sometimes, you will get these great little sequences of still shots when you kill a bad guy in a particular way. For example, at one point, I took out one of my pursuers with a throwing knife to the head. Up pops these three comic-like panels depicting the death of the previously mentioned goon. It was quite unexpected and more than a little bit funny.

Gotta love the comic book bubbles.

Aside from the looks and the graphic style, there appears to have been quite a bit of thought put into making the gameplay very fun, too. The aiming crosshairs will give you a little help, once you get it close to your target. That’s not to say that you are going to be pulling any Robocop action and never miss … it’s just that the crosshairs are a bit easier to aim, so when you miss, you can blame it on the manufacturer of the gun. Since the style of play is rather flexible, allowing the discrete and the belligerent approach to tactics, the game world can be extensively manipulated. Almost any object can be picked up and used as a weapon or moved around. Out of ammo? Pick up a shovel or a piece of broken glass. Or, how about just using one of your enemy’s bodies as a weapon? Better yet (and this was one of the funniest things I noticed), just use your enemies bodies as a shield. I was being given a rough time by a helicopter with a bunch of machine guns on it, and out of desperation, I grabbed one of the dead bad guys and slung him over my shoulder. He was kind enough to absorb a bunch of the incoming lead, for which I was eternally grateful. At least, I was grateful until I had to put him down to free up my other hand so I could reload my 44 Magnum. For some reason, I was laughing the whole time. Now either that means that the guys in the white lab coats need to come bring me my medication, or XIII is entirely too much fun.

By Carlson