Mac Game Review: XIII

Not many First Person Shooters distinguish themselves from the rest of the pack in this overcrowded genre. XIII is one of them. Developed by Ubisoft and ported by Zonic (who have ported a lot of games to the Mac) for release by Feral Interactive in June 2004, the Mac version includes all the game play modes from the console and PC iterations of the game.

Before XIII was a video game, it was a comic book. The adaptation is an extraordinary display of style. The cell-shaded presentation is entirely new to the FPS genre, and just as Jet Grind Radio before it, is a breath of fresh air.

Minimum System Requirements
Mac OS X 10.2.3
800 Mhz G3/G4
256 MB RAM
32 MB VRAM
1.6 GB HD Space

Recommended System Requirements
Mac OS X 10.3
1 Ghz G4
512 MB RAM
64 MB VRAM
2.5 GB HD Space

Test Computers
Mac OS X 10.4.6
1 Ghz PowerBook G4
1 GB RAM
32 MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9000

Mac OS X 10.4.6
Dual 2.5 Ghz PowerMac G5
3 GB RAM
256 MB ATI Radeon 9800 XT

Instillation was pretty much uneventful. The game is very playable on my PowerBook G4 with no hiccups. Thanks to the added power of my PowerMac G5, I was able to turn all the video settings up and even play the game at the native resolution of my 23" Cinema Display — though the cut scenes look quite bad at this resolution, as they were never meant to be displayed at 1920x1200.

Although the controls felt fine on the PS2, they are quickly recognizable to anyone used to playing a FPS on the computer. Everything is mapped well. If you do not like it, the key mappings are easily changed.

As stated, XIII in video game form is very similar to the comic. Some of the characters and story are changed, but it is still a true representation of the original. Just like in the comic book, the conspiracy of a presidential assassination unfolds in front of you with speech boxes and visual sound cues, such as "Bam," "Pow," and "Ahhhh."

It is hard to believe that XIII is running on the Unreal Engine, but the style is pulled of well and the graphics engine does the job needed. Characters and interactive objects are truly cell shaded, with thick black ink lines and continuous tone shading. The environments are actually "faked" but it is hard to tell, unless you really look. The texture work is just done in such a way to blend well with the characters. Because of this, the environments lack the rich detail and flair seen in the well-modeled people and objects. This is a trade off for performance, as cell shading is not the easiest thing for a computer to render.

Article Author: Ken Edwards

Ken Edwards is the Gaming Editor at Blogcritics, and calls Breaking Windows home. Ken works part time for Student Publications at BGSU as the Webmaster and System Administrator. He is also a freelance web developer.

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