Review – Singularity
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.
