Singularity (X360 Review)

By Clinton “dreddsix6six” O’Shea

Overview

It’s just Timeshift for a new generation isn’t it? Well, that’s what my first reaction was – before I played it. Then I warped time and finished it, and my opinion changed a little. Mainly because I thought Timeshift was average at best, but Singularity is, well, better. Not great. Not game of the year, but a decent FPS none-the-less which does attempt to add a slightly different angle on the time warp idea.

Features and Game play

It’s not completely ingenious what they’ve done, but at least you don’t constantly feel like you’ve just entered the Matrix every time you manipulate time. In fact, maybe that’s the wrong description right there. So let’s backtrack a bit shall we…

…to 1955. Yep, it’s the Cold War. The USA and Russia are fighting dirty, and Russia is about to make a war deciding discovery. A unique chemical element called E-99. Of course, things never go perfect for the “bad” guys in any story and in a not unexpected catastrophe, the ‘Singularity’ occurred on the island, Katorga-12, and the very naughty and secretive Russians decided to cover it all up. Crikey…that does sound original doesn’t it?

Let’s jump forward again – 2010 or as close as dammit. You are Nate Renko, an all American Black Ops, err, operative, sent to the island after a US satellite discovers the island in the middle of nowhere due to its high levels of radiation emissions. They obviously figured it to be a one way mission – and why our gaming heroes always accept this so easily leaves me rather baffled – but off he goes, battling to find the truth in this here, on the rails, First Person Shooter.

So far, so utterly, painstakingly generic. Yeah, the graphics aren’t bad, the sound is ok and the atmosphere is, erm, thick with radiation. Sometimes. Then they chuck in their trump card – the ‘TMD’. Catchy. The Time Manipulation Device is powered by the mysterious E-99 and can “manipulate timespace on a virtually limitless scale”. The TMD can move objects backwards or forwards in time, attract something and hold it indefinitely, or send a pulse of energy that can stun or even kill enemies. It only does all this against other living beings or objects that have been in contact with E-99 (and for an island rich in E-99, not everything on Katorga seems to have been in contact with this awesome mineral). Some enemies are also protected by their heavy armour, so other tactics are needed against them, but the TMD is mainly used for some simple puzzle solving.

But that’s not all. During the course of the singleplayer campaign (where you are essentially tasked with stopping a bomb and Nikolai Demichev – the main baddy), you shift between 1955 and 2010 and battle enemies back then, now and those caught between…i.e. mutating freaks. I think you can see where this is going…what if you go back and change the past? Does it prevent the future (or present) from staying on its destructive path? And what if you go back more than once? Ooohhh, the possibilities – if it was an open-world game – but it’s not, and the story is kinda fun in all its twisting and turning (and obviously underlying potential of a mass conspiracy), but the whole TMD thing is like a gimmick – way to reminiscent of Wolfenstein…I would’ve loved a more branching storyline, but to be fair, that would’ve made it quite complicated for the developers, Raven Software. They do at least let you decide how the game ends.

To be fair, I might sound largely negative about the game, but I’m not. I enjoyed it. It wasn’t overly complicated and didn’t take too much thought, and I am sure that is exactly what it set out to do. I didn’t love the game, but for around ten hours, I was completely entertained. I can’t comment on the multiplayer, because, well, I couldn’t find any opponents online, but if you have a few friends with the game, I am more than sure it should be fun. Probably laggy, but fun.

Bits I Loved

It’s quite mindless.
It’s like ‘Back to the Future’…
With guns…
And Russians…

Bits I Hated

Wanted a slightly less linear experience.
Didn’t Raven Software do this all with Wolfenstein?

Conclusion

Not a game I would recommend at full price (as it seems to have been done before), but if you pick it up on special, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Zombiegamer rating: