Review – Singularity ¹

by Adam Blue • Reviews

My initial impressions of Singularity might have came off as if the game was a bit mediocre – that’s what I was going for. But getting deeper into the game and being able to make use of all the game-play elements offered, it certainly switches things up making enemy encounters and puzzles fresh and exciting. But even if it was a little lame, it still has something else going for it.

There’s a pretty big story with Singularity, and even though some may not find it ‘deep’, there’s a lot to it. It takes place on some fictional island off the coast of Russia that housed a community and research facilities working with a newly discovered element, E99, to compete against the United States in the Cold War. This means some pretty crazy technology to be featured, as well as time travel. Throw time travel into anything and you’ve got me there day one. The story does remind me a bit of BioShock but fortunately (to me) the game doesn’t contain any of its downfalls.

The game plays like a standard FPS, in line with Raven’s recent work, but adds enough game-play elements to keep it fresh. Part of the Soviet technology includes a time-travel wrist-band, or TMD. Throughout the game you can manipulate specific objects in time. You can slow things down, age enemies to death, and even send certain destroyed objects back in time to their untouched state. Within the realm of time-travel, this game-play element is a little odd, as you can only do this to certain objects, and I ask myself, how is it determined what age it’s being manipulated too? I assume it just ‘happens’ for the sake of the story.

Little nit-picks like that can get to me in a game, but luckily this game is fun enough that I can look over it. That said, there’s nothing really bad about this game I can point out. I feel the graphics could be better and that the enemy design could be much more interesting. But luckily that doesn’t stop me from enjoying the game. After playing through it on Normal, I’d recommend just starting on Hard. It can get challenging at points, but this is just if you still haven’t understood how to use specific elements of the game-play to your advantage.

I’ve also got to say the FPS combat in this is very satisfying with firearms, especially once you get a hang of the aiming and have upgraded weapons. Enemies will pop out from all over the place in an intense mess, and with proper aiming and upgraded weapons, you’ll feel like a badass. I think properly surviving these firearm battles also required upgraded health, armor, and healing abilities. There is a lot to this and is definitely exciting.

There are tons of upgrade abilities for weapons, health, and your TMD. You will also come across special weapons that are used in conjunction with time manipulation. It’s really your call on how you use what the game gives you; I think this could make the game play different for multiple playthroughs. I personally just upgraded the main assault rifle and my health. But I could have went down the path of making my TMD a beast. The game could have played out much differently.

In the end, I recommend Singularity. Nothing amazing, but it is a worthy FPS will all the game-play elements available. Not sure if it’s worth full price though. I personally rented it. I will also add that if you liked Wolfenstien you should be able to easily get into Singularity, though I think Wolfenstien is a better game.

Red Dead Re-Awesome: Review ⁰

by Chad Blue • Reviews

WOW!!! When my little bro (Sean Blue) said this game was amazing, I thought…eh…it’s probably good…but really how awesome can it be. After being broke for a minute and not playing anything since Alan Wake (which is also awesome!), I finally broke down and got Red Dead. And to be honest it did start a little slow for me and seemed repetitious.

A little back story, if needed. Your a cowboy! I bet you didn’t see that one coming. Your a cowboy sent to find and capture or kill some one! Ooooh the plot thickens. You make friends and enemies on your way to help or hinder your journey. OK STOP Hold the phones this story is just too deep let’s get to the gameplay….ok.

Well after the first couple missions where you learn stuff, I started getting to the core of this game, and not just the barreling through of the story missions, but the challenges. The challenges are what really got me into this game. There is a Survivalist challenge (Yeah…picking flowers!), Hunter challenge (killing and skinning animals…one of my favs), Sharpshooter (skillful shooting tricks), Treasure Hunter challenge (find maps then find treasure), and I think there is another but I can’t remember. These challenges get harder and harder, but they also unlock little perks for your character. So far hunting and killing 2 cougars with only a knife was the toughest….they are fast and lethal. Also another hard one was a Sharpshooter challenge where you have to shoot the hats off enemy’s heads without killing them. Pretty hard.

Also getting the secret achievements are pretty fun. One of them I had to kidnap and hogtie a girl while making sure the law wasn’t after me. Then lay her on the train track just to get pummeled by a train to turn into red mist and chunks. Only 5 gamer points, but probably the funnest 5 I ever got.

Last I will finish with the GTA4 comparisons. There are lots. You can probably figure out what they are. But it takes them and makes them fresh again. All the mini games are great. Poker, Black Jack, Liar’s Dice, Horse Shoes, Arm Wrestling, breaking in horses, and a whole lot more. Well enough carrying on. I don’t want to spoil everything. I didn’t even get into the multi-player at all. This game has a lot of replay value. Get it. It’s the GTA Killer!!