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Singularity Review

Posted on 03. Aug, 2010 by Freak_c in News, Reviews

Why are most FPS games set with you either fighting against Russians or deathly creatures? And when you implement something new and unique such as a device that can manipulate time and objects, it isn’t used enough. Singularity brings us all of the above and unfortunately isn’t able to separate itself from the usual FPS game, even with bringing something new to the table.

This doesn’t mean that Singularity is bad and shouldn’t be played, on the contrary the game was fun and enjoyable. It simply fails to escape the typical FPS game story and uses monsters for more depth. You play as an American soldier named Nate Renko, who has the unfortunate task of correcting history that the Soviet Union changed when they discovered a source of Element-99 that has the power to warp time itself and create monsters. There’s a five minute introduction explaining this back-story in great detail at the opening of Singularity.

There are lots of meat-monsters and Russian soldiers to blast, plenty of weapons to do so with, and along the way you’ll upgrade Renko with new powers and tools to make him even more super. Interspersed with the shooting are some simple puzzles, heavy doses of storytelling and plenty of blatant clues to let you know that things are perhaps not the way they appear.

Your weapons range from the typical pistol to sniper rifle, but there are a couple that use time and the E99. During your course of the game you will come across weapon upgrades that you can use at various weapon lockers. Here you can upgrade certain parts of the weapon equip yourself with a different weapon for the task ahead. You can only carry two weapons on you so it’s nice to see plenty of these lockers, the problem is that if you don’t have a weapon upgrade you can’t upgrade the weapon and these are fairly tough to find. What I did notice is that once you find the large machine gun you’ll rarely swap out weapons as this is a very effective and reliable all round gun.

On your other hand once you find it, is the very cool gizmo called TMD, or Time Manipulation Device.  With it, you have near limitless power that is, in fact, only limited by the developer’s rather mundane imagination. This device can alter time with incredible precision enabling its user to age or revert single objects. Decayed crates filled with ammo can be made new again. Boxes can be aged to pieces for easy transport. Locks can be aged to dust to open safes or lockers. Staircases renewed to reach new places. Enemies can be aged before your very eyes. The problem comes in that only select few objects can be manipulated and you realise that the TMD is more of a gimmick and is no used to it’s full potential.

The one gun which was different and excellent fun to use was the seeker gun. This gun shoots bullets that use the power of E99 to slow down time around it. If you hold L1 and fire you will be able to control the trajectory of the bullet. It’s a pity that it they didn’t build in use of the sixth-axis like Heavenly Sword did with the arrows. But it was still a nice inclusion to the game which I would have liked to do more of.

The best parts of Singularity come when the typical FPS parts are abandoned such as the corridor shooting that dominates the game in favour of special levels. One stage puts you in a massive time-restored boat that is slowly reverting back to rust as it springs leaks and ultimately sinks while you run through it. Another pits you against a massive monster. These are the most tense and exciting parts of the game, but they aren’t quite enough to make you forget about the weak puzzles, banal story, and otherwise straight-forward design.

Singularity has three different endings, all of which can easily be seen by loading up your last save point and playing through the final moments again. Once that’s done, there’s little reason to go back for another romp through the short 7 hour campaign. There is an additional multiplayer portion of the game that has an extremely small community which makes it impossible to find a game. So unfortunately I am unable to comment on the multiplayer section.

Beware to encounter a lot of texture pop-in. and sometimes it takes a while for the textures to load so the pop-in seems to take a while. Graphics are standard, with a colour palette exactly what you would expect. Sound for the game is convincing and voice acting is decent through out.

Conclusion
If you are looking for something to fill the gap under the next wave of games are released then, Singularity isn’t a bad choice at all. The gunplay is solid and there are a few memorable set pieces. It is a game ultimately limited by a lack of imagination where a neat time-manipulation idea is handcuffed to a by-the-numbers first-person shooter. It will help pass the time but it will be over sooner as well.

6/10

A big thanks to Megarom for supplying the game for review.

Tags: Review, singularity