There are games that require thoughtful passage and dozens of hours of wasted time. There are those that can be run in a couple of minutes, or even shorter. And sometimes there are those that in theory offer a lot of content, but in fact disappoint in 20 minutes. Remake XIII is just one of the last.
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The original XIII was released in 2003 and became a cult in the original sense of the word. Few remember the shooter with an unusual visual style, but those who did not miss it, most often remember XIII fondly. In terms of mechanics, this is not the deepest game even for its time, but it had a charm that came straight from the original Belgian comics about secret agents, espionage and betrayal. Therefore, the announcement of the remake was received quite warmly: the developers diligently showed that they understand the essence of the original, although from the very first screenshots there were slight fears about the final product.
Why corpses often have bulging eyes and a tongue spilled out remains a mystery
Alas, they were not in vain. The new XIII turned out to be bad, it seems, in everything: from the mechanics of shooting to animations and voice acting. Everything is done at such a low level that the original seventeen years ago looks advantageous against the background of the updated version.
When shooting at XIII, everyone seems to be armed with toy guns. If the hero shoots with a starting pistol at opponents standing in a group and puts a successful headshot, then one of them simply falls dead, and the rest do not even notice it. By the way, it falls to the extreme ridiculous: the animations of the model are simply turned off, and the enemy flies to the ground in the position in which he died, after which the ragdoll comes into force, giving out completely ridiculous poses. In the remake, the ability to fight with the help of improvised means was added, but the mechanics seemed unfinished: one of my opponents, after hitting the head with a chair, fell under the floor, leaving a reminder of himself in the form of legs sticking out of the parquet floor. The game seems to offer a stealthy walkthrough with the ability to hide corpses, but this action is even more useless than trying to find something good in a remake.
The same failed corpse
What exactly is wrong with sound is even more difficult to understand. At the first level, the secret agent began to lose health during a simple run along the coast. It took me about a minute to realize that this was due to opponents shooting at me from afar, whom I simply could not hear. And no, their weapons were not equipped with silencers. At the same time, it is necessary to open the cabinet, as a rumble from it is heard, it seems, to everyone within a radius of a couple of tens of meters.
But there are other mechanics like breaking doors. In theory, it sounds simple and logical: I walked up, pressed the key, the door opened. In fact, everything is absurdly ridiculous: the Thirteenth carries with master keys in the air, and magically the door turns out to be open. How exactly this black magic works is anyone’s guess. The same applies to stealth: opponents are so stupid that you can often run up to them at close range unnoticed and cut them out with your bare hands or with an improvised object. Leading questions: This is the penultimate difficulty level available.
The scripts did not work here and the enemy did not drop the weapon, which is clearly very happy
To this should be added jamming or disappearing music (here, how lucky), breaking scripts (opponents can freeze without action), disappearing objects and the ability to get stuck in textures or on stairs. The list can be continued for a long time – and I did the refund in less than an hour. The feel of the game is similar to the early alpha with the only difference that here we are talking about a full release.
How the developers managed to break every available aspect remains a big mystery. But before us is living proof that Warcraft III: Reforged was not as bad as it might seem.
