I’ll be honest here, Singularity has not been on my radar at all. I only heard of the title a few weeks back and due to the low key marketing the game got, I was not expecting much from it when I put the game in the console.
Ultimately, Singularity is a consistently, entertaining first person shooter with a well paced single player campaign and a solid multiplayer mode to boot.
Set on a mysterious island called “Katorga-12”, where the Russians were experimenting with a substance called “E99”, it is revealed that a catastrophe occurred in 1955, which in turn lead to the Russians covering up the island’s existence.
Taking control of a character called Nate Renko, a US Black Ops soldier, you are sent to investigate strange radioactive readings emanating from the island. Upon arrival, your flight crash lands and after you regain consciousness, you discover that the island is over run with mutants and that the island’s time line is fluctuating from the years 2010 and 1955.
As the game progresses you are introduced to all sorts of wondrous technology.
The most of important of which is an item called the TMD (Time Manipulation Device). Attached to Renko’s hand, the gadget gives you the power to either age items or to return them to their original state. The same device also does the same things to the various antagonists you’ll encounter, with some quite grisly results – giving you the ability to turn soldiers into dust and later, the ability to turn them into mutants (in turn, turning them against each other)
The TMD also enables Renko the ability to pick up objects and move them (think the Half Life 2 gravity gun). So there is quite a bit of moving crates around, so you can jump onto platforms involved – sounds a bit tedious, but ultimately, these moments give the gamer a bit of relief from the all out action.
Another trick that the TMD has up it’s sleeve, is that it can create a time bubble, where nothing can get in and everything inside it is suspended.
The various weapons in the game are also worth a mention. Aside from the standard shotgun and machine gun, you also get to use weapons such as the seeker (where you fire the bullet and control it’s destination) and a sniper rifle that can slow down time, making those harder targets slightly easier to take down.
The game rarely gets tiresome, as the developers have done a good job in keeping the pacing fresh by mixing up things with the various villains you’ll encounter and the various puzzles you have to solve.
At times, Singularity is all out warfare, pitting you against the Russians in a variety of stand offs. Other times, you’ll have to creep around in dark sewers avoiding blind mutants that can vomit poisonous bile onto you. It’s all very tense stuff and it’s this approach that keeps the game flowing nicely.
Developers Raven Software have also done a good job in building an enjoyable multiplayer mode.
Featuring two different modes, the game offers one called “Extermination”, which is a typical assault and defend mode, and the other is a team death-match mode called “Creatures versus Soldiers”.
Giving gamers the chance to play as both the creatures and the soldiers, it's a neat little trick that sets it apart from your standard multiplayer warfare and there is enough customisation going on to keep the proceedings interesting.
No game is perfect and Singularity does have it’s flaws. At times the graphics can be bit low res and the details on certain surfaces can take their time to load. But this is to be expected really, considering the level of ambition on display here.
Part action adventure and part survival horror, the Singularity is one of the most enjoyable games I have had the pleasure of playing this year. It may be technically flawed in places, but the pacing is so good, you probably won’t notice it.
Verdict: 8.5 out of 10
The Good:
Terrific single player campaign
Good paced action
Great weapons
The Bad:
Graphically flawed
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