XIII Demo

[RegularX]

I'm assuming at least a couple of people tried it. Thoughts?

[rahga]

I really enjoyed it, fit my taste better than all of the Phase 1 MSU finalists.

First the bad: Mileage really does vary on different systems. For my box, the unpacking was so bad, the first sample mission was completely unplayable (missing components and textures everywhere, except on player models), but the second one was fine. Other people have reported the opposite. Either way, bad setup.

However, I did like the gameplay a bit, as it employed a nice variation on Metal Gear-styled FPS play. That pretty much sums it up. There were several small details that really gave the developers a gold star in my book... When you look through the scope, you can notice a faint layer of dust on your lens, very nice. When you are quiet and listening for footsteps, comic book "tap tap taps" show through the wall, providing a nice positional clue. And several picture-in-picture camera effects are very well done....

[RegularX]

I found it extremely enjoyable, despite this bizarre tendency to just complete jump my view in a random direction. I really hope they playtest and fix this one up before it's gold, because it has the potential of being one of the finest FPS title for the year and a great example of using the cel-shading for a good effect.

[Sir_Brizz]

Yah it has TONS of bugs still, but it was quite enjoyable besides

[FlakMan]

It was fairly enjoyable, until I couldn't figure out how to beat the second level. I go up on the elevator, dispatch a few baddies, and I have nowhere to go, and no clue as to what to do. But I thought the beach house level was pretty win.

[rahga]

On the second floor, bust the grate next to the back wall, take part in a half-life-esque silo drop, and crawl around more to rescue some dude.

[Daedalus]

I really liked it and only encountered the "Throw you in a random direction" bug. I thought it was because my IM program kept popping up in the background but I guess not.

[JamesKilton]

I never encountered the "throw you around bug" or any graphical gliches. I really enjoyed playing the demo (though never actually was able to beat the second misstion).

My two thoughts:

• Enemy AI: has a lot of work to be done. I encountered enemies running headlong into boxes, enemies ignoring me, though the dead body detection was very nice.
• Weapon damage: drove me nuts. I could empty an entire clip of my M16 into a guy, and unless I hit him in the head, he'd be alive to knock me down to 40 health (or less) before I could headshot him. So I hope that gets balanced a little more.

But other than those, I thoroughly enjoyed the game. It ran surprisingly smooth on my computer, and I love the comic book additions. XIII (hopefully) will be a "must have" for me.

[RegularX]

I just tried this a couple days ago, and the random direction bug didn't happen.

They have also promised full mod tools for it. I'm pretty psyched to both play and mod for XIII, which is rare for me.

[proudclod]

Once u get to the second floor, jump on the boxes, break da grate, and enter the ventalation, after that go to until u see the electrical thingie, press CTRL twice, aim it at hook on the top, and click. Go down as low to the lightning as possible, and when it stops hold right click, once u see a soldier, stop going down, take out ure gun, and shoot him in da head with a single shot, press the use key to jump off.

[EvilDrWong]

MP demo is cool, but there are quite a few balance issues they need to get a handle on. Weapons and ammo respawn a bit too fast IMO, and it seems that explosions are more likely to hurt you than your opponet (example: I shot an AR grenade at my brother, he ducked it and i blew up though he was only hit for some 20 points of damage. We were both at full health with no armor)
All in all though, ive gotta say im pretty stoked for the games release.

[RegularX]

I was actually kinda disappointed with the MP. Weapon balancing, locational damage and bot AI felt really off for a demo, and the interface needs a serious review.

Still hoping there's enough time to make it shine though.

[WackoZ]

Well I just downloaded it the other day and not only did i not have any problems at all, but the editor works fine too - except for the fact that it wont load the maps that come with the demo ( must be something they put in to keep anyone from editing those maps)
no bugs, smooth play.
only one issue I noticed is that you start the second level with only a hook and a lockpick, but the hook seems useless, as the only place i saw where it could be used it did nothing, and i got no indication of where it could actually be used.
and then once you go out the door into the hall, that's pretty much it - yer dead.


The editor comes as a separate unpack, and has a slightly different version of XIII.exe to go with it - meaning the filesize is different.
trying to move dll's and such into the XIII game's system folder, as is done by default with a standard instalation, only causes horrendous errors.
In other words, the release of the editor and it's files are not compatible with the release of the playable demo.
I was a little bummed by this because i wanted to make the demo levels larger, and link them to new levels i plan on making - but whatever, ya know ?