Singularity

The whole world... in my hand... get it? No one? -Sigh-

Moving right along, Singularity is a first person shooter with a twist (as pretty much every first person shooter has been for a while) developed by Raven Software (Dev. team for Quake 4 and CoD:Black Ops download content) and published by Activision. Singularity takes its ideas from other FPS games like Bioshock, Metro 2033, and Call of Duty (mainly with a lot of bad guys being Russian, German or Nazi forces) and fuses them all together, albeit a bit half hearted in each adaptation.

The story is... confusing if anything. Russia finds something known as Element 99 (E99) which emits a huge amount of natural energy and of course uses it to make a bunch of crazy weapons (I mean, what else would you do with it?) and eventually create a large device that causes... well a singularity. This singularity causes temporal "jumps" that sends people within the radius backwards or forwards in time or drags others from the past into the present (most of which are VERY not friendly). A bunch of marines head to Russia to check out what the hell is going on. They promptly get shocked by a singularity wave, crash onto the island where the experiments took place, and, just as promptly, all die horribly with the exception of the player. The player jumps backwards in time to a burning building, finds a man who is about to fall to a firey death, saves him, escorts him out, then returns to the present to realize he just screwed time up REAL bad. Russians took over the world by force in the new present due to the use of E99 and the man the player saved (oopsie daisy). The player is then sent to find the "TMD" under the guidance of a group known as MIR-12 (which consists of like... 2 people) to fix the time back to what it was... or at least something that doesn't involve the world turning into a nuclear wasteland with mutants everywhere and Russians killing whatever moves (that includes you). The fate of the world... is in your hands... still no one? ugh my humor is wasted on the masses...

Gameplay wise, Singularity is a "normal" FPS feel with science and physics thrown against the wall. The player is given a very standard array of weapons, a pistol, combat rifle, shotgun, and a sniper during the start of the game. A few "special" weapons can be found as the player continues onwards (a minigun, explosive spike cannon, rocket launcher, and so forth) and each weapon can be "upgraded" in damage, reload, or clip size by finding limited weapon "cases", forcing the player to specialize in one or two weapons. Since simply having a gun in a virtual world is too dull, Singularity gives the player a Time manipulation device or "TMD" for short. The TMD gives the player the ability to age or revert time in incredible increments with the push of a button. The TMD starts with ability to rebuild a collapsed staircase, turn a scrap box back into a medical kit, or age an enemy so rapidly that he turns from flesh to bone to dust in a matter of seconds. More TMD upgrades and abilities are unlocked as the player advances through the story. Normal enemies would be too simplistic as well; as such Singularity has different mutations of humanoid beings due to the exposure to E99 in addition to the countless armed soldiers who seem to want the player to die asap. Some "phase" in and out of time allowing them to teleport and dodge your firearms, teleport explosive barrels to themselves and hurl them, or even spew out another mutant (gross).

Other than killing a bunch of horrible creatures and soldiers, the player has to solve puzzles here and there to proceed. These range from "move Box from A to B" and "Age object to open door" to "Age this object so it can fit into this slot, then revert it so it pushes the slot upwards making a gap, then crawl under said gap, age object, remove, put somewhere else...". In other words, puzzles go from easier than a 1-piece puzzle to a handful of tasks in precise order and a few with timing. Frustrating yes, but there's a handy button the player can push whenever to send out a "ping" that highlights the ground with "footsteps" to where the next objective is. However this does not "solve" puzzles but rather shows where the player must proceed, it is still up to the player to grasp the surroundings and figure out how to move on.

Graphic wise, Singularity has the same "gritty" feel Bioshock did, but a lot less charming and immense. Traveling around in time is rather interesting, but the locations don't change the fact that the enemies will always be 1) guys with guns or 2) some crazy monsters. Perhaps the coolest thing in the game is reversing time on a massive object (done via a "follow the ball" with your mouse), watching a ruined bridge reconstruct itself or a ship rise from a watery tomb is visually pleasing as well as a pat on the player's head of "Yeah, I just did that."

Sounds quality is ok, not as beautifully atmospheric as Bioshock (yes, I like Bioshock, I'm going to keep referring to it) but tries to copy the dark errie silence as well as the intensity of certain situations with musical cues. There are "recordings" of people which is taken almost directly from Bioshock to delve into the background of the game events, these range from eerie to simply put, scary as hell to help fit the mood. There is of course, a HUGE drawback to the "sound" of the game. There are NO SUBTITLES. This gets worse since the recordings are rather quiet and locked in place (Bioshock let you pick up the diaries) as well as characters speaking to the player while in the middle of a huge firefight with music going on... thank god for that "ping" function or I'd have no idea what to do at some points.

Singularity is a "good" game, not brilliant or great. It has flaws but many good points to cover up (still wish it had subtitles) as well as an interesting concept. The story is ok, not the best-written piece of the year but it still drives the player forward. I have a few issues with the actual plot as I'm really into the whole "time science" crap, but if you just play the game for a game without thinking about all the little points of "what if" and "if that happens then..." it's still enjoyable. Again, the game is good and has dropped in price quite a bit, but it's not as great as the games it tries to take after.