You take the role of a prisoner with a severe case of amnesia. You have no idea who your captives are or even why you are being imprisoned. Heck, you don't even know your name. You simply identify yourself as Twelve-thirteen, the number you've been assigned by the doctors who preform experiments on you. As the game starts, you wake up in the same confusion and pain as any other day. A doctor arrives at your cell, hands you a pistol, forces you to go through an obstical course (which functions as the game's tutorial), and subsequently gets the guards to lob you back in your cell. Oddly, the doctor doesn't take the pistol away from you. It would seem that he's just taunting you with the thought of the freedom you'll never have again. Suddenly, your cell door opens...

I'll start off by saying the storyline is great. The author of the game did a fantastic job with this. There is a creepiness to the story that I havn't seen in any game in a long time. Most of the game's pieces of story are portrayed through computer journals written by the guards and doctors running the prison. If the gameplay fails to keep you interested in the game, the story definately will.

As mentioned before, the game plays a lot like classic Prince of Persia games. It's not my cup of tea, but it works well enough. It's very simple, and not really all that interesting. You've got your running, jumping, shooting, climbing, and environment interaction. That's pretty much it. However, there is the interesting and rather strange health system. Instead of a healthbar, you see and hear your heart. The faster it's beating, the more pain you have suffered so far. To replenish your health, you have to stand in a shower. I know taking a shower is sometimes refreshing, but healing wounds...? Strange, but more interesting than the overly-used white box with a red cross on it.

The music adds a good deal of atmosphere to the game, and is quite well done. Sadly, the songs are rather short and loop often. The sound is average, nothing much to say about it... gunshots sound like gunshots and dying guys make grunts. Although both the sound and music are taken from other things, it does fit the game nicely.

The graphics aren't very good. While everything is distinguishable, everything is also very simplistic and undetailed. However. there are parts in the game where the graphics do a good job at portraying the eerie atmosphere. Oh, and there is blood. Lots of blood. Bucketloads of blood. That makes any game better, if you ask me.

I recommend this to everyone, solely because of the story. Much to my dismay, 1213 is short and ends with you wishing you had more. Each episode will only take about 15-20 minutes to beat.

The game offers 11 levels as well as an easy way to edit or create new levels: just open a level file in your favourite text editor and place monsters, items and scenery, then load it from the main menu.