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Who or what is XIII? This is the question posed to the player who is about to begin. The answer, in terms of the game, you are XIII. A man who has lost his memory and struggles to uncover his past and suppressed innate abilities. In our world, XIII is a game from the company who brought us other excellent spy games and shooters such as Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, and Splinter Cell. XIII is based off of a French comic book and is presented with cel-shaded characters and environments, atypical fashion for a FPS.

Right from the opening comic book styled menu screens, it's apparent that XIII is oozing presentation. Once the game begins, you are treated to the equivalent of a graphic novel come to life. The art, action, voice, and music direction is so good it hurts. It's one of those games that fool your friends and significant others into thinking you were just watching something on TV. The opening to this drama unfolds with a recap of a presidential assassination and has you waking up alone on beach with a couple of spare pieces of lead in your system. Much like The Long Kiss Goodnight, you start finding out from others around you, that perhaps you aren't such a good guy, going as far as to implicate you in the death of the President of the United States of America. From here it's up to you to unravel the mystery of your past through a somewhat original first person game.

Like most other cel-shaded games, screen shots to not do the game justice. You have to see it in motion first hand to appreciate it. It's amazing the amount of real-world depth that comes out of a game that is really depicting a 2D hand drawing. The animation and character acting really help seal the deal with the presentation. Not to mention the exceptional use of well known comic book themes such as overlaying panels on the main screen and using words to emphasize sound effects. For instance, a BOOM accompanies grenades and rockets while Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta's ripple from machinegun fire. The cutscenes really go a step beyond that, and I personally would be interested in a XIII movie or animated series on DVD using the same graphics engine.

The only real problem is after the initial visual onslaught and hook of the story, things start to slow down. XIII starts showing signs of weakness that are prevalent with every game in the genre, things even Halo couldn't escape without co-op mode. I, like many others, get tired of the same old weapons and the same old shooting sequences with the only delta being changing environments. The multitude of environmental settings being one of the things XIII really excels at. The repetitiveness and lack of complexity is not a fault of this game per se, it just comes with the territory, much like the "slash-slash-slash" gameplay of Lord of the Rings or Dynasty Warriors.

One of the features that looked promising was the subconscious skills that were locked away in your forgotten memories. These are abilities like sixth sense, being able to approximate enemy locations from sound, and firing two guns at once. The letdown is that you don't have to quest for or earn points to spend on these locked abilities. They just unfold during the story whenever they are first needed.

The multiplayer modes are usually the saving grace of any FPS, and XIII is ready to cash in on the trend using split screen, LAN hookup, or XBox Live. These modes are becoming pretty standard now too, but that doesn't take away any of the fun to be had playing with friends or other real world opponents and teammates. Deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, and sabotage are the four modes offered up here. Sabotage is team based game where two teams square off with one trying to blow up checkpoints in a level while the other team defends them. Again, there's nothing here to set itself apart from the competition other than the graphics and styling, so it depends on your preference for reality. It takes multiple shots with a shotgun to take down someone in XIII, where a couple of bullets will end your days in a game like Rainbow Six.

For my money, it's not worth owning more than one or two first person shooters. Huge fans of the genre won't want to let this gem slip by, but the rest of us need to make a tough choice on which of the flooded market of XBox FPSs to purchase. That's one I can't answer for you. As with any game, we just hope that we've supplied you with enough information that you can make an informed decision this holiday season.