Throughout the history of computer and console games, comics have been a great source of material for the latest adventure, shoot 'em up or beat 'em up. Besides Marvel and DC characters getting the treatment, we've also seen British creations like Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper and Strontium Dog getting the pixel makeover. It's not surprising that other countries want to get in on the act, rendering their creations in whatever number of technicolour polygons and sprites the latest consoles will allow. Enter XIII, originally a phenomenon of French comics in the eighties and now a game that tries to immerse you in the comic book feel while still paying its way as a tough little first person shooter.

Most comic books sell you on a story and this one is quite gripping. Bizarrely for a French comic it's set in America; President Sheridan has been assassinated and shortly afterwards the character you play washes up on a beach with gunshot wounds and the decal 'XIII' tattooed on your chest. The problem is that you're suffering from quite acute amnesia and have no idea who you are or how you got there. Luckily there are plenty of people willing to tell you, some who want to silence you forever and some who want to help you - or do they? What unfolds is a tale of mystery, intrigue, conspiracy and heavy calibre weapons.

Regardless of the story this is just a first person shooter and although it's above average in its quality and gameplay, it doesn't push the genre that far. You get your standard life bar, armour and weaponry, with the usual round of enemies coming at you. These vary from skinhead soldiers to uber-cool trendy leather clad assassins and even mad doctors with syringes that send you a bit wobbly. Other incidental characters are thrown into the mix too, including nursing staff, security officers and the odd passer-by. One nice touch, essential for clearing the occasional level, is the use of hostages. You can sometimes grab an incidental character from behind and walk through heavily guarded areas with them. Security guards never want to risk a life, so as long as you don't turn your back on them they won't shoot.

The level design is certainly thorough, if again not pushing the boundaries that far. The settings include a bank you have to blow your way out of, a snowy mountain pass you need to search to find a chalet and the operative hiding there and even something akin to the Grand Canyon. Within each level there are a variety of little extras to help you get through, including your usual health packs, ammo and weaponry. However, a lot of the scenery can be used as weapons, including chairs, bottles, broom handles, bricks and so on. These are particularly effective in the parts of the game that require stealth; sneaking up behind a guard or hoodlum and clunking them on the head with a brick is great fun. Finding these nice little touches does take time and exploring levels carefully can reap some rewards, including important documents and flashbacks that, while interrupting the gameplay a little, do move the story on in a gripping fashion.

What really sets this game apart though, is the graphics. After all the games to come out based on graphic novels and comics, this is the closest a game has come to really capturing the feel of a beautifully inked and coloured strip. The developers of the game have really grasped the potential of cel-shading, combined with the heavy black lines of an ink-laden brush and the vibrant colours of acrylic paint. Each character seems expertly crafted by the deft hand of a master illustrator at work but is made three dimensional and given further depth by the fabulous shadow and colour changes as the polygons move in and out of a variety of light sources and effects. Besides this, the comic book feel is carried over in lovely action shots, including panels of different characters chatting about this and that or of your enemy being taken down. For example, if you silently take out a patrolling henchman with a deadly telescopic sighted crossbow, you're treated to three frames or panels of cartoons that depict the arrow hitting the opponent, entering their extremely surprised and distressed face and the resulting spray of blood out the other side. It's a disturbing sight but so well done as to be almost... well... art!

This sweeping pen and ink work continues on into the scenery, which is seamless and blended, as if it were created with thick watercolours. While the black line and cel-shading continues, the designers have used another great comic book effect in making the colour of the setting seem a little washed out. Compared to the stark primary palette of the animated chaps, this is a neat little trick that never allows you to lose sight of the expressions, animations and other nuances of the enemies you have to overcome. This technique is carried across into the cut-scenes, which are carefully crafted little vignettes, again designed to represent a moving comic book strip. The daring exploits of XIII and his cronies are captured to great effect in moving sequences. The occasional comic book stills are presented in a stylised fashion, not completely unlike Ang Lee's carefully crafted blockbuster, Hulk.

Even the sound is denoted in a graphic novel fashion. Every time there is a whoosh of air from a jet, the thud of something hitting the ground, or the scream of a dying armed thug you get the sound effect represented in a vividly coloured comic style font flashing quickly over the screen. This is actually quite useful in some areas of the game, as the tap, tap of footsteps is displayed in larger and larger fonts as an enemy behind a wall or door moves closer. By the end of some of the later stealth missions you'll be relying on these to pinpoint your next takedown. However, although this stylised approach is a nice touch the actual aural effects aren't up to much. The music is by the numbers, as are the weapons and speech effects. The wooden acting surprised me, particularly when you consider that the vocal talents of David Duchovny and Eve were being used. However, Adam West (yes, the original Batman!) as General Carrington was inspired and really set the standard for the other wannabes.

Another gripe I have with the game is its lack of originality in the multiplayer department, consisting of the rather bog-standard Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Sabotage (consisting of one team defending checkpoints and the other blowing them up) and Capture the Flag. Hmm, where have we seen those before? Oh yes, in just about every other multiplayer first person shooter under the sun! How can so much time have gone into creating those fabulous graphics and so little time into creating something that'll stretch the life of the game out that much further? Saying that, I do still feel this game is a solid title, packed with entertainment and with a slick, glossy feel to it. Gamers that are hooked up for it may be interested to hear that you can play XIII online, if you can be bothered.

I'd never heard of XIII before, even though I've been an ardent comic fan for some time and this game has encouraged me to delve a little deeper. It's certainly succeeded in raising the profile of the original series and in itself has an edge of your seat gripping yarn feel to the plot. While the format of the game doesn't break new ground in its approach to gameplay, the graphics certainly do and the game is entertaining enough in its own right that, while not a classic, is still worthy of your time.

Reviewed by Dave Wynn for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).