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jp's XIII (PC)
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| [October 17, 2005 01:15:20 AM]
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Ah! The end. So sweet... I'm glad I slogged through because the end was fun, interesting, and different. No, I'm not going to spoil it, but it was worth it. In its own little way. (I don't want to give the wrong impression either... it ain't brilliant, ok?)
If I've moaned about the difficulty level...well, mea culpa. It turns out that I had he game on the next level up from "easy". Woops!
Another cool thing I noticed is that the game had some pretty good voice acting (not that I noticed...but that's me..). David Duchovny (Mulder) amongst others..phew! Who would have thought. Anyways, it was a fun romp. I still love the art direction and yes, the game ain't nothing special but worth it if you can still find it.
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| [October 14, 2005 11:56:35 AM]
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I really hate this games load/save system. You can quicksave, but when you quickload..it starts from the beginning of the level! Also, you can't access the load/save menu when you are playing (you can exit to see controls and save..but can't load!)
GRRRRR!
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| [October 13, 2005 07:01:41 PM]
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I thought I was playing the last mission. What a sucker.. there's more! It turns out that now I've gathered enough information to mount a real "attack" on the conspirators who are really high-up officials who you can't take out directly. So, here I am wandering around a super secret US base... Actually, I've kind of lost track of the storyline by now. I don't really know who the characters are or anything. I'm also lazy about looking at some of the background material that is available! (so, blame me, not the game designers)
I really want to get this game over with quickly...
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| [October 8, 2005 09:06:37 PM]
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I made some more progress on this game the other day. I think it is getting close to the end since I've been taking out more conspirators than you can shake a stick at. Basically, they are all roman numerals...and now, if memory serves, I'm trying to take out number "I". Nobody knows "I"'s true identity...so I'm expecting some sort of super-story-twist-surprise moment that will be completely wasted on me because I don't play the game that often to remember all the little details.
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| [October 3, 2005 11:23:02 PM]
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I cleared the submarine level and a few more as well. I did run into a very annoying problem (one-time bug?). Basically, as soon as I cleared the submarine level I got to watch a cut-scene and then I got the loading screen. Bam! The game crashes...when I reboot, do you think I had to play the ENTIRE submarine level again? Yup. Big problem..and probably a not so hard solution. My call to game designers and develpers? If you have an auto-save feature, make sure it does save when the appropriate message (level cleared!) is shown on the screen.
The more I play this game the more I realize that it is the ambience that is making all the difference. The gameplay isn't really that special, but the experience is very neat and I'm still enjoying that.
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| [September 27, 2005 02:04:12 PM]
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Hmmm.. I spent about 30 mins. trying to "clear" the first level inside a sub. It is one of those "never raise the alarm" levels which is kind of lame. I mean, you basically have to go through it using a lot of trial and error.
Sneak, alarm.
Repeat
Sneak, sneak, alarm.
Repeat
Sneak, sneak, sneak, alarm!
Repeat.
I think you get the idea.
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| [September 16, 2005 10:04:51 PM]
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Booted this up again today after a loooong time (since April!) and I wasn't really expecting to get into the game as much as I did. I re-read my last GameLog entry and realized that I hadn't exactly stopped playing it in a "high note".
Anyways, this time around the whole checkpoint/restart problem didn't occur (weird!) and I was able to make my way past the boss thanks to some well-aimed grenades. Yes!
I made some more progress and have enjoyed myself. I have to confess that I'm actually a bit surprised. After my great experience with FarCry I can't say that I was expecting too much. In fact, I was even considering closing this GameLog. However, I'm glad I didn't, I just hope to get back to this game before 5 months pass!
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| [April 10, 2005 01:03:08 AM]
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Ok. So I've made some real progress recently, including reaching (but not yet finishing) a boss fight. (with energy bar and all!)
I have to say that this game has two annoying things. The second is really bad though...I guess I didn't notice it because the game was so easy...
1) Automatic weapons are a pain to use. They really miss a lot...even on short, controlled bursts. I've taken to using the pistol because I can get 2 head shots (a kill) in faster than the automatic weapons!
2) The saving/checkpoint system SUCKS! I'm playing the game, reach a checkpoint (as noted on the screen), keep on going.. die, and then restart at the last SAVED checkpoint! Whatever happened to autosaving from checkpoint to checkpoint?!? This even happened to me after I cleared a level and started a new one! I died and had to re-finish the previous level! Geez! Also, and this is to make things even worse.. quicksaves are also misleading! A quicksave "saves" your game as of the last checkpoint reached. Sometimes. This is REALLY stupid. What is the point of having a quicksave if you can't save?!?!?
This is, in my opinion a serious flaw in this game. It makes it really frustrating to make any progress. I've had to replay a LOT of annoying areas simply because of the games checkpoint/save system being so misleading. Grrrr!!
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| [March 22, 2005 12:47:18 AM]
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Has it been that long since I played this? Yes. The main reason is that I installed it on the computer I used in the lab and I've been really busy lately. So busy that I haven't had time to play this game! (and when I do have a little bit of time, I usually end up playing some Wolfenstein...)
Well, it took me five minutes to remember some of the basic gameplay (other than moving and shooting) and it onl took me one minute to remember how cool the game looks. It is so stylish that I'm really intrigued about reading the comic books too.
Curiously, there is a poster in the experimental game lab which I thought was related to the comic (XIII) 'cause it has this shadow of a gunman looking down on a badge with a XIII. This poster is actually from another comic book called 100 Bullets! I've actually read some of this one recently and that is how I noted the badge that doesn't correspond with the french comic book. What a mess! Anyways, I'm actually kind of excited about playing some more of this, though I will definitely have a really hard time finding the time to do so.
Sigh.
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| [December 1, 2004 03:22:39 PM]
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Oooh! I just encountered a "bug" in the game. It's not really that big of a deal, but it did snap me out of my suspension of disbelief.
I had to escape from a facility with a hostage. Everything was fine (I had the hostage held and all) and I was shooting left and right. I hit "enter" to reload and...whoopsidaisy...I knocked out the hostage. (killed?) So, I decided to keep on going by myself... Sure enough, I made it out..but now the hostage was also with me! Didn't I leave her unconscious on the hallway floor?
I know it is a minor thing, and I don't really mind it all that much but I thought I should mention it anyways since it seems that it is such an easy thing to go wrong! (I'm sure the designers anticipated it). The worst part is that I did it all my mistake!
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| [November 29, 2004 03:22:39 PM]
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I tried online multiplayer for a little while on Ubisoft's game service. It connected fine, needs no extra downloads, etc. I was actually a bit impressed by how smooth that went, especially since I know there is a patch out there that I haven't installed.
On the other hand, the game experience can be best described as lame. I know I'm not some super shooter player, but I was getting completely wasted in this game. The worst thing is that I would die in like 2 shots and couldn't take out someone else even after emptying and entire clip (using short controlled bursts). I don't know if there is some setting I'm not aware of or if everyone else was just plain cheating. Anyways, overall a pretty lame experience.
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| [November 22, 2004 04:42:39 PM]
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Still cool and still fun.
XIII is a bit on the easy side. At least for now. I've only died twice and that was because I was learning how to use a grappling hook device (and fell to my death because I didn't know that you could swing back and forth on it). Anyways, new weapons have been introduced, including the sniper rifle which is always a personal favorite.
I'm not really understanding much of the story either, but that could be because I'm not supposed to. Yet. Anyways, it's all this conspiracy thing where I supposedly killed the president and yadda yadda yadda.
Finally, I'm at a point where I have to infiltrate an army base somewhere in the snow. I couldn't help remember Metal Gear Solid...hehehe.
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| [November 17, 2004 02:40:59 PM]
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OMG is this game cool or what? I've only played for about a half-hour and I am absolutely enthralled by the visual style of this game. It is just so awesome. It is like playing in a cartoon, but the contrast with the serious story makes it so much better.
Gameplay is also intersting in a few new ways. Mainly I like how some some enemies, objectives, etc. are "highlighted" in little comic-book like panels that appear on screen. It isn't realistic but that's beside the point. This game is basically experimenting with novel ideas for player feedback in a first person shooter. Nice.
Playing this game is bringing back fond memories of Half-Life and Max Payne.
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| [November 16, 2004 04:40:59 PM]
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Once again I picked up a game at a bargain bin price. Now, I'd been following this game for a while since its development and later release. I don't think it did too well though it received warm (not hot) reviews.
As for my interest? Well, I just think that the art style is totally awesome. I loved it in the screenshots and I can't wait to see how it works in the game. (I'm also assuming that it will be a pretty standard FPS as far as gameplay goes, and that is ok)
I installed it this afternoon and had to try 3 times! The game comes in 4 CDs and I went for the full-install. It crashed. Twice. (some CRC error...like the a file was "wrong" on the CD). To make things worse, it crashed on the last disc, near the end. Grrrr! Bad beginning. Very bad.
So, I decided for the light install (ONLY 1.2GB!!..Sheesh...). Fortunately that worked. Unfortunately by this time I wasn't able to actually try the game. Well, I played a few bot matches just to see what it was like. Hmm... It looks nice, though the weapons don't seem to good...I'll have to see if it is targetting problems or something else.
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jp's XIII (PC)
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Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Monday 15 November, 2004
GameLog closed on: Monday 17 October, 2005 |
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