XIII: Жеке Бастығының Ізімен (XIII: Zhekе Bastıǵının İzimen)

2003 video game

Designed with a comic book style, cel shaded presentation, the game incorporates single player and multiplayer game modes. The game's main story focuses on a confused and amnesic man who searches for his identity after being found stranded on a beach. He slowly finds himself caught up in a conspiracy by a group who aims to overthrow the government. The protagonist assassinated the President of the United States, and is wanted by the FBI. XIII received mixed reviews and sold poorly upon release, suspending plans for a sequel, but gathered a cult following. It also received a follow up game for mobile phones entitled XIII: Covert Identity, and a re imagining of the game as a hidden object game entitled XIII: Lost Identity in October 2011. A remake of the original game for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows and Xbox One was released on November 10, 2020.

XIII is a first person shooter with elements of stealth and action in certain missions. The game centers on the main character, named XIII, who has awakened with amnesia. He uses a variety of weapons and gadgets to uncover the mystery of his identity throughout the 13 chapters and 34 missions. The characters and weaponry in XIII are cel shaded, giving a deliberately comic book style appearance, including onomatopoeic words contained in bubbles for sound effects. It uses Unreal Engine 2 because it was "really strong for level design" and allowed development "across all platforms using one engine". The developer felt that the appearance reflected the comic book and innovated in its portrayal of violence; blood splatters are shown in a cartoon manner. XIII includes 16 weapons, from a knife to a bazooka, an Uzi to an M60. Objects such as bottles, chairs, or brooms may be used as weapons.

The multiplayer hosts a maximum of 16 players. The game features three standard game modes along with modes exclusive to each system: Team Deathmatch, Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Sabotage (on Xbox and PC), The Hunt (on PC, PS2 and GameCube), and Power Up (on PC and PS2). Depending on the platform, players in online and offline modes (against bots) range from 4 to 16. The GameCube version does not have any online modes, while the PC version excludes the multi screen modes but includes a map editor. There are 13 maps on Deathmatch plus one additional on Team Deathmatch, while 5 on Capture the Flag and 3 on Sabotage. The player can choose from among 10 different character appearances. In Deathmatch, all players compete against each other and the strongest player wins. Team Deathmatch is similar, but players form two teams. In Capture the Flag, a player must retrieve the flag from their enemy's base, and bring it to their own team's base. In Sabotage, one team must place a bomb in three different locations, while the opposite team must protect these areas; the protectors win if the time limit is exceeded (except if the time is set to infinite). The bomb is always found at the beginning of the team base, and the player who holds the bomb must wait 12 seconds until they may drop it and take shelter from the ensuing detonation. In The Hunt, players must shoot ghosts, which become gradually smaller after receiving hits. The player only has one weapon, the hunting gun, with which they can shoot human opponents. Power Up is a deathmatch game, in which boxes containing special, temporary abilities, such as invisibility and higher speed, are found throughout the map. and was submitted at the 2002 Electronic Entertainment Expo in May 2002, with such games as Doom III, Max Payne 2 and Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. On November 22, 2002, Ubi Soft announced a delay of the game. Justin Calvert of GameSpot guessed that the time would be used to thoroughly check the game and implement additional features on other platforms. On May 7, 2003, Ubisoft announced that singer, actress and model Eve would be the voice for major character Jones. Ubisoft's vice president of marketing, Tony Kee, stated that she was the perfect choice for the role, admitting that she has "a combination of style, sexiness, and attitude—perfect attributes that describe the Jones character." Two months later, two other major voice acts were revealed: David Duchovny would play Jason Fly (XIII), while Adam West, General Carrington. The official site was launched on August 19, featuring videos and information about the gameplay. Ubisoft implemented a pre order on September 4, promising a free demonstration version with multiplayer and soundtrack. The game was promoted at the Fall College Tour from September to October. Beginning at Cornell University and finishing at the University of Southern California, the tour featured demonstrations of games, playable via the 50 screen GamePort system. Another demo, multiplayer only, was issued on October 2, but the discovery of a bug led to its removal. A different fixed demo was released a day later. Xbox players had the opportunity from December 15 on to win one of 50 copies of the game. The campaign was dubbed "13 Days to Xmas": those who spent not less than 13 hours playing until Christmas were qualified for the contest. The winner was randomly selected on January 9.

The Thirteen Soundtrack was composed by several artists from the San Francisco based music label Future Primitive Sound. 13 tracks were produced, all of which were initially unnamed. According to the booklet, the DJs are connected with the characters, such as DJ Faust and Shortee with XIII, DJ Zeph with Carrington, or J Boogie's Dubtronic Science with Mongoose. The album opens with an introduction and then includes songs in the likes of typical 70s era music such as soul, funk, jazz, but also hip hop. According to founder and creative director of the collective, Mark Herlihy, the soundtrack project began with Herlihy's friend, Pete Jacobs, whom he met at a gig, five or six years previously. After studying the characters and the story, the group decided on a noir and futuristic style that would reflect the espionage theme. Its rhythm ranges from 105 to 120 bpm. Herlihy later stated that they "wanted to capture the essence of XIII in this soundtrack by showcasing its nostalgic style while giving the beats a modern twist" and their intention was "to tell its story through the music and create a seamless head nodding mix that would complement the energy of XIII and get gamers hyped." One reviewer of IGN gave the album 8 out of 10 stars, stating: "It's an album that works expertly as a chill out slice of background groove, yet it also doubles as a dance floor jolt of exuberance perfect for spinning at a small party", but also stated that the player, understandably, quickly forgets the music while playing. He concluded that the album is "jazzaphonic electronic tripped out funkuphoria".

XIII received "mixed or average" reviews, according to video game review aggregator Metacritic. IGN said "XIII has a great story driven sheen, but at its core, it's weighed down by some occasional bewildering flaws, in addition to the lackluster weapons and simple combat". GameSpy criticised the graphics and the multiplayer mode, and concluded "When it comes right down to it, XIII is a fine game Just don't expect the FPS of the year because, sadly, this isn't it". Eurogamer called XIII "a flawed masterpiece. A game brimming with variety and a freshness lacking from most of the factory farmed franchise exercises that pass through our offices with crushing regularity". In 2010, UGO ranked it #7 on the list of the games that need sequels. At the first Spike Video Game Awards in 2003, XIII was nominated for the "Best Animation" category and "Best First Person Action" category, but lost to Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball and Call of Duty respectively. XIII also received a nomination for "Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition" during the AIAS' 7th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards.

While the anticipated sequel on major gaming platforms remained unrealized due to poor sales of the original title, Gameloft released a follow up on mobile phones titled XIII²: Covert Identity in October 2007, which was a side scrolling game rather than a first person shooter. A re imagining of XIII, called XIII: Lost Identity, was released by Anuman Interactive for Microsoft Windows, iPhone and iPad on November 15, 2011. The game is not a shooter, but a hidden object game. On April 18, 2019, a remake of the original game was announced for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One, which was developed by PlayMagic Ltd and published by Microids. It was originally scheduled for release on November 13, 2019, until it was delayed to 2020 for further development. It released on November 10, 2020 and was received extremely poorly by both consumers and critics, with Metacritic naming it the second worst game of the year, behind Tiny Racer for Nintendo Switch. Nearly two years after its release, Microids released an overhaul update of the remake by an entirely different studio, the France based Tower Five, replacing PlayMagic.