Exclusive: XIII storms into action!

Swimming up from the depths of unconsciousness and surfacing in the land of the living, you come around in a beach hut-style structure, blurred vision slowly focussing on a swimming costume-clad woman who could have been lifted straight out of Baywatch.

She's relaying a mysterious message over the phone, revealing that "you've been found" and that you're "in possession of a key to a bank safe". Cue disturbance outside, which the woman goes to investigate.

Suddenly guns open up, bullets rip through the hut's flimsy wooden walls with the words "Rat-a-ta-ta-tat!" on display and the woman gets blasted into the beyond. "Arggggh!", she cries in both audible and visual manner, crumpling onto the floor in a pool of blood. Uh-oh.

With no clue as to what the hell is going on other than the realisation that you could be in a spot of trouble, you scrabble around the hut and locate throwing knives, a pistol and ammo. Bursting into the outside world, you're confronted by gun-toting, well, what turn out to be enemies, which for unknown reasons are looking to put a well-placed bullet between your eyes.

Today is not a day to die, so it's time to deal out your own slice of death and destruction as an adventure begins that will find you delving into intrigue and sinister conspiracy and unravelling mystery...

Welcome to the world of XIII, Ubi Soft's PC and next-generation console first-person shooter that's heavily influenced by its comic book roots. The game finds players filling the boots of the title's namesake, XIII and, set in the 1960s, uses the assassination of John F. Kennedy as the hub around which all the action revolves.

Suffering from amnesia, XIII is accused of murdering the president. So, he embarks on a mission to both clear his name and uncover the truth, proving himself and adept killing machine along the way.

You have, of course, already seen screenshots and footage of XIII, either marvelling at, or remaining slightly dubious about, its cel-shaded graphics, use of comic book frames and visualised cries of death. From our hands-on experience, we're happy to say that the comic book influence and references work surprisingly well, ladling on the atmosphere in good measure.

The use of comic book frames is particularly impressive in this respect, such being employed during combat sequences, in cut-scenes that develop the story and as a way of offering hints and clues as you wade your way through missions. Snipe an enemy through the skull, for example, and his gory death is depicted in a three-frame sequence showing bullet entry, effect and exit. Awesome.

Cleverly, Ubi Soft has ensured that locations of hits matter here - in the same sniping situation, if you were to hit an enemy in the chest, then the death sequence will alter accordingly and end showing a gaping, bloody hole in the unlucky target's back.

Thankfully, the comic book influence isn't simply confined to this "frame" gimmick, as it also plays an important role in XIII's stealth element. Character XIII is in possession of a "sixth sense" that he can use to locate the "Tap Tap" (words that appear in-screen) sound of footsteps when he remains motionless. When he's still, a small pulse appears on-screen that indicates that his sixth sense is active.

How does this work? Well, in one sequence we played we were hovering outside a closed door, and remaining still as a mouse we could visually follow the sound of an enemy's footsteps on the other side.

The "Tap Tap" footsteps would approach the door, and then move away again, so, waiting until they had retreated, we muscled our way through, surprised what turned out to be a guard on the other side and dispatched him with a swift burst from an M16.

XIII is, of course, brimful of action as well, firefights waiting around every corner, turn and bend as you forge ahead in your quest to uncover the truth; enemies putting up a respectable fight, ducking behind cover, retreating from grenades and dying a glorious spray of blood as you blaze a path to justice with sniper rifle, M60, frag grenade and other contemporary, and highly satisfying, firepower.

Combat stages, or levels, consist of both outdoor and indoor environments, the opening map, a snowy outdoor area complete with drifting snowflakes and a dockland area that we saw looking decent enough, given that extra quirky touch thanks to cel-shading.

It was the "snowy outdoor area" that grabbed most of our time and attention, due to a rather tricky opening sequence that found us in precarious surroundings - on a cable car. The build of the game we were playing allowed us to jump into this mission part way through, the cable car having come to a standstill and turned into a sitting duck for enemies peppering it with bullets from the ground.

Then suddenly a scripted frame sequence appeared depicting an enemy readying and firing a rocket launcher. Oh dear. Bam! It exploded against the side of the cable car, causing our vision to blur and throwing us and a person we were trying to protect (don't ask us who, when or why, because we won't give the story away - or what little of it that was revealed to us anyway) around inside the car.

Our charge then made the rather dubious decision of disappearing out of a trapdoor in the cable car floor, which left us teetering on the brink, hanging by a very thin thread (or cable we suppose) over the jaws of death.

Luckily, XIII was packing a grappling hook, which we managed to secure and then made a rapid descent to the ground before the cable car plummeted to its destruction.

And it was out of the frying pan and into the fire, as we came under fire as soon as we hit the snow-covered ground. Our charge had somehow made it down as well and we proceeded to attempt to protect him from incoming enemies. Whipping out the M16, it was payback time for the assault on the cable car, foes going down in screams and splatters of blood.

XIII plays very much like a standard first-person shooter, so it's down to the cel-shading, comic book style and storyline, which will be crucial, to give it an edge. Dipping into missions at random, it was difficult to get a sense of how the game gels together, but the whole "comic book" thing did make it an unusual, and unique experience.

There's the constant feeling that you're immersed in a 1960s-style spy caper complete with classic cannon-fodder henchman and sneering, fiendish villains plotting your demise, which is all good, but we just hope that the impact of the comic book style won't slowly wane during play, simply leaving you with gameplay that you've already seen many times before.

But our hopes at this stage are extremely high. These brand new images give you a good idea of what to expect, but to fully experience the amazing visuals and irresistible uniqueness of the game in action, you need to check out our unmissable exclusive hands-on footage of us playing through several sections of the Xbox version of XIII.

The video is available exclusively to our Gold subscribers right now, but everyone else will be able to check it out in just five short days. If you can't wait that long, click here to sign up and get going.

Exclusive XIII footage
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Stuart Bishop