XIII might have a slightly confusing title, I'll admit it. I've heard people reference it as "ex-eye-eye-eye" or "ex-three", but it's just the Roman numerals for the number 13, a number that seems to be at the epicenter of the man character of the game and the guy you play. The catch? He has amnesia. Oh, but that's only the tip of the iceberg.

It all starts with the assassination of the President of the United States. Shortly thereafter, a mysterious amnesiac is roused by the voice of a woman, who then quickly is killed herself in a hail of gunfire that tears the hospital he's woken up in apart. After sifting through his cloudy head enough to realize he needs to beat feet, the man dispatches his would-be assassins with seemingly expert precision and begins searching for clues to figure out who he is, and why he has only the number "XIII" tattooed on his chest and a key a New York bank box in his pocket.

Thus begins XIII, Ubi Soft's ambitious, original first-person shooter that could well be a standout console FPS - even with higher-profile titles like Half-Life 2 due out this year. XIII's main draw is its style, which borrows heavily from the French comic book that inspired it. The art style goes beyond the cel-shaded look of the game and infects every little bit of the game's presentation. Kill a man stealthily, cinematically or with the surgical precision of the lethal assassin you appear to be, and the events unfold on top of the main screen, splayed across multiple comic book-style panels. It's a fantastic effect, and when coupled with real-time on-screen speech in the form of text from dying enemies (our favorite is seeing a stream of "Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!" letters as a man plummets a few hundred feet to his death), you get a wonderfully immersive and interactive experience.

What's perhaps most intriguing about the game is how the plot runs in two seemingly disparate channels, that of the President's assassination and that of XIII's foggy origins. The two slowly begin to come together (not without a few major plot twists too, Ubi Soft promises) and more and more a tightly wound conspiracy begins to form.

Actually finding out who XIII is (and why everyone with a gun save for XIII himself seems to know exactly who he is) will be one of the best parts of the game, mainly because as you progress more and more moves are revealed, allowing you to kill with stealth or steamroll through enemies led by a wall of white-hot lead. XIII possesses a sixth sense which represents itself as a momentary reticle flash, letting you know where previously hidden enemies are coming from.

Thanks in no small part to the game's basis on the Unreal II Engine (which seems far more PS2 port-friendly than the first generation engine), the game is rife with stylized architecture, and even on the PS2 there are still rather expansive, lush environments. While the build we played at E3 was a bit choppy when compared to the Xbox version running next to it, the game controlled and played beautifully, and when the games aren't running side by side for easy comparison, they're nearly graphically identical.

XIII has been in development for some time now, but it appears the world Ubi Soft France has put in the game has been very well spent indeed. Come Fall, we'll all finally get to unravel the conspiracy, and after spending plenty of time with the game, trust us when we say Fall can't get here soon enough.