zippdementia's XIII review

The way XIII handles saving was a major irritation for me all the way through, playing the PC version. Maybe console shooter fans are used to checkpoint systems, but when I'm playing a PC FPS, I expect to decide where and when to save, not have the game decide it for me. And especially not pretend to let me save anywhere and then have me pop up somewhere completely different when I reload, typically right before an unskippable scene.

I finally gave up some 3/4ths into the game when I got one of my greatest FPS frustrations tossed into my lap, a stealth level. Not the first one, but definitely an incredibly annoying one. If I've just gunned down two hundred bad guys in the past level, don't give me an instant game over because I alerted one here. Even if they all come pouring forth when the alarm sounds, I think I can handle them, thank you.

It's been a couple of years since I played XIII on Xbox, but I remember most of the stealth sections being pretty easy and mostly involving hitting people with chairs.

Some gamers just HATE stealth sections and will never be any good at them. To throw those into an FPS title that otherwise doesn't employ them and to penalize the player for failing by throwing them back a long way every time and forcing them to repeat lengthy sections they're good at but find boring upon repetition... that's inexcuseable. I don't care how 'easy' other people find it.

And to add to that, Jason, I just don't like putting them in FPS games due to how they disrupt the flow.

I remember my best friend and I rented Red Faction when it first came out on the PS2. Started out having a good ol' time blasting our way through the mines. Then we got to this stealth area in a office-kind of place and my enjoyment just started going downhill. It just wasn't what I wanted in a blasting game.

I also never liked the "stealth" levels in the old Medal of Honor games, but I have to admit it was fun how you had to ignore "stealth rules" to get the best rating, since kill percentage factored into that.

See, for me, I think the whole game should've been more stealth based (judging by the fact that it is based off a spy comic book), or at least more Deus Ex in its approach to a mission.

But I totally agree. Once established as a shooter, it should've stayed there.

Personally, though, I think the main reason that level is piss shit annoying is because if you fail, you have to do the entire slooooooooooow walk into the office again, with no way to speed it up.

I was thinking of a ship based level - battleship, maybe submarine, it's been a while. The level was a brick wall to me. Not the first FPS where I stranded on stealth either - Return to Castle Wolfenstein ended the same way for me.

I've come to appreciate Metal Gear Solid's gameplay in more recent months but at least there the stealth is the core gameplay, not something that feels out of place with the overall feel of the game. In LucasArts' western themed shooter Outlaws, if the enemy knew I was coming, they'd find cover and be that much harder to flush out, but I wouldn't get a game over waved in my face because sorry, you tripped the invisible instant failure wire.

Oh the ship level was a piece of shit. God I hated that level.

See, the cool thing about MGS (the first one, at least) was that even though it pressed stealth upon you, it wasn't an instant game over if you were discovered.

Most likely you'd be killed, but at least they gave you a chance to fight back/hide your sorry ass.

I dislike the whole Tenchu style of "You're seen! Game Over!"

Someone here summed it up nicely. "I've just killed about 600 people. Why is it game over when one guy spots me?"

I completed XIII a few years ago on the Gamecube. I do remember individual moments of stealth pissing me off, but I would not have remembered how much stealth was called upon overall unless this thread reminded me.

XIII has a bit of significance for me in that it's the first time I learned to control movement with one thumbstick and control my POV in 360 degrees with the other, to play a FPS on a console. (As opposed to the 'turn L+R, strafe and move forward and back' on one stick, and 'look up and down' on the other... which makes you really clumsy at aiming in the vertical plane.)