Year: 2003
Type: Gamerip
Composer(s): Lionel Gaget
Number of tracks: 27

★★★★★

Thirteen Reasons Why Not

The word XIII is not the exclamation of every loyal inhabitant of China when satisfying his or her partner, which is only considered complete with an accompanying salute. No, it is actually the Roman numerals X for 10 and III for 3, which together make 13 or 'Thirteen'. Behind this number is a shooter from 2003, which stood out from the crowd thanks to its unique comic style at the time as well as a narrative style with panels à la Max Payne and is still considered a cult classic today.

In 2003, however, I hadn't even reached the game title in my lifetime, which is why I was denied the pleasure of the shooting rampage. Now you might think that I would have made up for this omission with the 2020 remake at the latest. However, this was apparently not very worthwhile, which gives me a great excuse to save money and - more importantly at the age of 30 - time. Lifetime that I can invest in something really useful instead, such as listening to the gamerip for XIII and writing a review about it.

The thing about gamerips is that they very often contain a lot of junk, as composers - especially in video games - have to cover a lot of ground with their tracks in order to make up for the playtime. Curating original soundtracks (OST) makes sense and the result is often a good, albeit selective and abridged, insight into a score. In the case of XIII , however, a ready-made selection would probably not have done any harm.

According to my research, the score was composed by Lionel Gaget, who, unsurprisingly, is French. Does that say anything about the quality of the music? No. But France is probably one of the few countries where a name like Lionel Gaget doesn't get you bullied at school. Gaget ... I can't stop thinking about Inspector Gadget, and what it would have been like if it had been Inspector Gaget instead, staring out of the window at the nasty Doctor Claw in black and white Film Noire style with a cigarette in his mouth, which a robot arm has pulled out of his hat ... can you tell that I don't feel like talking about the music of XIII ? Probably.

However, I don't want to waste your time either, although you clearly seem to have too much of it if you've read this far despite the headline, album rating and what I've written so far. For this reason, I'm happy if I can at least keep you from wasting any more time with this gamerip. It's not badly done in itself: high-hats, driving percussion, piano strumming and saxophone / flute provide the desired agent feeling. Unfortunately, unlike Noone Lives Forever or the Mission Impossible-films, the composition lacks an identity. Everything somehow sounds the same. And the fact that the track length varies between four and nine minutes makes it long and drawn out.

That's why I was tempted not to go with the three stars as a standard rating, but with just two instead. As I said, not because what I've heard is bad, but because it's simply not entertaining enough for me to speak of 'average' with a clear conscience. What it does create is an average to good thriller atmosphere - but nobody voluntarily listens to that for 2 ½ hours, do they - except me? By the way, if these few analytical words weren't enough to satisfy your curiosity, you can also take a look at this review from archive.org.

No.	Title	Artist(s)	Ratings
01	Brighton Beach	Lionel Gaget	2
02	Winslow Bank	Lionel Gaget	2
03	FBI Headquarters	Lionel Gaget	2
04	Rooftop	Lionel Gaget	2
05	Emerald Military Base 1	Lionel Gaget	2
06	Emerald Military Base 2	Lionel Gaget	2
07	Rocky Mountains	Lionel Gaget	2
08	Kellownee Lake	Lionel Gaget	2
09	Plain Rock Penitentiary	Lionel Gaget	2
10	Plain Rock Asylum	Lionel Gaget	3
11	Plain Rock Canyons	Lionel Gaget	3
12	Grand Canyon Valley	Lionel Gaget	2
13	SPADS Military Base 1	Lionel Gaget	2
14	SPADS Military Base 2	Lionel Gaget	2
15	SPADS Submarine Pen	Lionel Gaget	2
16	USS Patriot	Lionel Gaget	2
17	AFMD-10 Harbour	Lionel Gaget	2
18	Bristol Suites Hotel	Lionel Gaget	2
19	Willard's Estate 1	Lionel Gaget	3
20	Willard's Estate 2	Lionel Gaget	2
21	Willard's Estate 3	Lionel Gaget	2
22	SSH-1 Military Base 1	Lionel Gaget	2
23	SSH-1 Military Base 2	Lionel Gaget	3
24	SSH-1 Military Base 3	Lionel Gaget	2
25	SSH-1 Military Base 4	Lionel Gaget	2
26	Yacht Lady Bee	Lionel Gaget	2
27	Credits	Lionel Gaget	2