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XIII Shows Off Cel-Shading FPS Skills 49

Posted by simoniker from the shadowy-french-agents dept.
Thanks to GameSpy for posting a developer diary for XIII, the multi-platform, cel-shaded FPS from UbiSoft that's now due to ship on the 9th October. The executive producer on this Unreal-engine title talks about some of the stylistic innovations, such as "pop-up windows to show major actions or headshots", and "onomatopoeias... to help [the player] like a form of sixth sense", Batman TV show-style. GameSpot also has some recent, guarded impressions of the title, which is "based on an immensely popular [French] graphic novel series", and features an intriguing soundtrack from San Francisco turntablists Future Primitive Sound.
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XIII Shows Off Cel-Shading FPS Skills More

XIII Shows Off Cel-Shading FPS Skills

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  • I'll bite ... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ccweigle ( 25237 )
    Which plot came first, XIII or Bourne Identity? I've got my guess.
    • Bourne Identity was published in 1980, any ideas when XIII issue 1 was release?

      • Re:I'll bite ... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by fireduck ( 197000 ) on Friday September 05, 2003 @01:55PM (#6881798)
        according to the developer diary (first link) the first issue of XIII was release 1984.

        what I find interesting (and somewhat off-topic) is the list of personnel working on the game (taken from the developer diary):
        • Elisabeth Pellen, Scenarist
        • Nathalie Provost, Graphic Technical Director
        • Nathalie Moschetti, Artistic Director
        • Jean Zappavigna, Lead Game Designer
        • Alkis Argyriadis, Lead Sound Designer

        at least 3 of the lead designers/directors are female (unsure of the gender of the last 2 names). that seems a fairly high percentage in a field dominated by males...
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Demo (Score:2, Informative)

    by darkmayo ( 251580 )
    Played the demo.. while the comic book feel was nice cell shaded for this game (imo)it could be done alot better.

    if they want it to be like a comic have the characters look like comic book characters.

    for example take a look at the Dragonball Z budokai game for the PS2 cellshaded but it looks like the anime.

    Or if you are into Naruto the japanese releases on Gamecube and the upcoming PS2 release of the Naruto fighting games.. Cell shaded but they look like the manga/anime.

    Other than that the game play is
    • Lets try that again..

      While the comic book feel was nice, the cell shading for the characters was not impressive and (imo) could be done alot better.

      also links to the Naruto and Dragonball games

      Naruto PS2
      http://www.narutofan.com/index.phtml?jutsu=in forma tion/games/ps2/index.php

      Dragonball
      http://www.us.atari.com/games/dbz_bu dokai_gc_actio n/

    • if they want it to be like a comic have the characters look like comic book characters.

      Wouldn't it make more sense for the characters to look like the comic book characters in the actual comic the game is based on, rather than Japanese anime books?

      A couple of images from the comics are available here:
      http://membres.lycos.fr/tristram/bd/xiii.h t ml

      (note, just the first page I found that actually worked for me)

      It would seem that they tried to do a fairly good job of capturing the look of the comic in this
  • I thought the cel shading was very well done, almost eirely so. It has more original design elements to it than 90% of shooters in the last 5 years. Quite looking forward to it.
  • will it mesh together well when its time to play the game? The announcer in both Unreal Tournaments annoyed the hell out of me when he kept boomed "HEAD SHOT!" out of my speakers. I turned off the feature as a result.

    • Re:Pretty but... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05, 2003 @02:43PM (#6882226)
      I thought everyone liked that? Half the reason I bought UT2k3 was because of the "announcer" aspect of it. I especially like my speakers to boom with all the "commentary" programmed into the game for going on a streak. I also thought the verbal taunts by other players added something other arena-style fps lacked. Quake3 has some funny comments, but UT2k3 actually tells you that you suck through such colorful comments as "I'll swallow your soul!" Man, thanks for reminding me I haven't reinstalled the game on my laptop yet!

      Having played the demo, I can say I really like the way it came together. I think it could be a lot better, but I really like the looks of it so far. It kind of took the comic book look and feel that I don't normally like, and made it work well in a video game setting...which is great in my opinion. I thought the comic book style story and "cutscene" aspect of Max Payne didn't work well, but otherwise it was good. XIII, though I'm not sure how it's pronounced properly (admittedly, sound card was busted on the machine I briefly played the demo on, so I don't know about an announcer booming "head shot" or "wicked sick," looks more story-based anyway), looks as if it'll be a real good one. It's certainly won it's fair share of awards, and my first impression was good. I may even be willing to shell out $50 for such a game. Doesn't suprise me though, last game I paid that much for was UT2k3 :). If it's cross platform, I will definitly give them my money, if it doesn't run on Linux...well, to hell with them.

      • Quickly becoming offtopic, but there's a mod out there for UT (not sure about 2k3) called CrotchShot....

        Once you get so many crotch shots, you become the:

        CrotchMaster!

        I about peed my pants when I heard that....
      • But UT2K3 goes a bit overkill with the announcer. For example, when you're doing the character select, must it shout out the name of every character in the game as you scroll through the list? >_>
      • For the first few weeks I first started playing, it was neat, but if you play as a sniper or play lots of CTF (especially in a server with more than 12 people), the announcer gets very annoying. Yes, I know I'm good now stop yelling at me everytime I get a headshot.

        As for the auto-taunts, thats ok but when half the people on the server use the same skins, models and voices the taunts get overused.

  • linux? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by endrek ( 547737 )

    It's based on the ut2k3 engine? so will there be a linux port?

  • From the EULA:

    "It is not permitted:
    - To make copies of XIII,
    - To operate XIII commercially,
    - To use it contrary to morality or the laws in force, ..."

    What on earth does that mean? Is UbiSoft going to attempt to describe all of the "moral" rules we're supposed to abide by? Wacky.
    • Ubisoft is French, right?

      In France, artists have inalienable "moral rights" to their artwork. These rights are usually more powerful than copyright, and are established in their constitution.

      The " - To operate XIII commercially" is idiotic, imho. They want to prohibit people from running servers for pay?
      • The " - To operate XIII commercially" is idiotic, imho. They want to prohibit people from running servers for pay?

        exactly. Ubisoft is paying for the game and licensing it to you for personal use. You want to make money off the game somehow, you have to negotiate that with Ubisoft. Same thing with just about any moddable software out there. IIRC, Blizzard went after the few "unofficial" expansions to Starcraft that were released retail. OTOH, a number of developers successfully negotiated with sierra/
        • Right, but that has nothing to do with the prohibition to operate the product commercially. That has to do with modification, distribution, etc.

          They're saying you can't *run* the program and get paid for it. That's something I've never heard from another developer. For example, Valve isn't going after any of the folks that get paid to operate CounterStrike servers for clans stuck on cablemodems.
      • That sounds more like offering it to players in internet/gaming cafes.
    • UbiSoft has no morals. They published Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor.

      It's like they took the bad parts of a dungeon crawl and a console rpg and put out the most craptasstic game ever.
  • There are so many good games coming up for the game cube. I don't know where I should put my dollars for the upcoming games. I played this one game at best buy the other day. I think it was called Viewtiful Joe or something like that. It was a little odd, but pretty fun.
    But, back to the Cel-shaded FPS, it looks really interesting and at least worth a rental. Once again, the gamecube version does not have online capablility, but that shouldnt surprise anyone, either. But, I definetaly think it's worth a ren
  • Maybe I just needed to play it more, but I wasn't terribly impressed with the XIII demo. I think it's an awesome idea, and an intriguing usage of cel shading, but it just doesn't come together for me. The reason is mainly because I'm not sure I fully understood what the game wanted to be. They have some nice comic book inspirations when enemies die and stuff, but the game seems to play too "realistic" amidst the comic book nature of it all. Is it just me, or do you literally die in a couple hits? I don
    • I have not played the demo (Linux) but have been obsessing over the game for a while (yay game cube)

      it definatly is a sneakyish type game. just read the description of the crossbow, that is not a weapon in a live a long time getting shot type of game. Also the comic book TAP TAP TAP of people walking is supposed ot act like seeing through walls. more sneakyness.
    • Unfortunately, Auto Modellista sucked big-time. Aside from the network/lag problems, the physics were seriously fucked up. I'm glad I got to test the game before it was released so I didin't waste my money on it. I was actually getting excited about it until I got the betas (build two was even worse).
      • I don't argue that Auto sucked. My point is that Capcom used the cel shading in an innovative way to produce a racing game that didn't look like anything else on the market. Ubi is trying to do the same for the FPS genre with XIII.
        • True. I just had to bitch about Auto Modellista sucking so much because I had such high hopes for a seriously bitchin' game... know what I mean? I got a pre-order for XIII and have similar expectations for it. Hopefully it'll be a great (or, at the very least, decent) game.
  • They seem to innovate in the same way.

    Comix Zone [vgmuseum.com] by sega used the batman style "onomatopoeias..." all over the place.

    next

    • You aren't serious, right? Comic book sounds have been used all over in video games. The innovation here is in how they are being used and displayed. It's not just and additional "THWAK" image when someone is hit, but also when someone is walking past you, etc - and the style is consistent with an actual comic ... not just Double Dragon.

      Some slashdotters seem to think that because it's an cel shaded FPS based on a comic, it simply can't be innovative. Which is odd since there has never been a cel shade
  • on a tangent: if you're into jurassic 5 or mix master mike you should pick up the 'live @ the future primitive' session #1 before it goes out of print. lucious.

    also: LFPSS 2 w/ z-trip and radar is pretty damn fine, as well.

  • My first impressions of this game were wonderful. It's nice to see something different, such as a fully cell-shaded FPS, and many of the features described were wonderful. The user interface also looked different than usual, in a good sort of way, so I downloaded the demo to give it a try. (as a word of advice, download it here: http://downloads.ign.com/objects/572/572733d.html FilePlanet is the devil, and the IGN downloads are pretty fast, and no lines when I downloaded.)

    I can't say that my first impres

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