Singularity

[Mandalore The Shadow]

I don't know if any one has heard of this game but it looks really good it takes place on an island who's existence was covered up by the Russian government fallowing a disaster known as the Singularity on the island as a result of one of the experiments involving element 99 the Russians were doing during the cold war. This all happened in 1950. Now it's 2010 and you are an American Air Force pilot who is sent to investigate strange radiation emissions on the island. You crash and wake up later to discover you now have a Time Manipulation Device (don't worry you still have guns). You then meet the head scientist and he explains that someone has returned to the island to try to restart experiments your job it to stop him. Now the TMD is what I am really exited for, as the game flickers between 2010 and 1950 you can move objects between time periods. It also has many other cool functions check the game out.

[Sabretooth]

I saw some old trailers of it, wasn't really impressed - looked like Half-Life 2 Redux to me. I've heard rumours though, that the game is a black horse - it is intentionally appearing uninteresting because it has something up its sleeve. We'll see when it comes out, which is... tomorrow, come to think of it. Hmm.

 

Raven Software is one Ye Olde EffePeeEsse developers, so I hope they don't let me down, they've made some fairly good games in the past.

 

Edit: Don't you ever proofread your posts? It's Singularity, not Singulariy.

 

fixed the spelling error. - Cz

[Astor]

Eurogamer's review says it's 'rather good'.

[Mav]

This time travel gimmick sounds like another FPS game that wasn't all that good... Timeshift. I hope this isn't just another FPS game with a gimmick. Let's see what comes to mind... Fracture (terrain warping), Haze (steroid mode), Medal of Honor: Airborne (OMG verticality!) there's prolly more, too lazy to look.

[DarthParametric]

Eurogamer's review says it's 'rather good'.

Joystiq's and IGN's reviews seem to say it's rather crap.

 

They should have just made another Jedi Knight instead.

[Sabretooth]

I imagine they'd love to make a Jedi Knight game, if only LucasArts got off their high horse and agreed to make a Jedi game that didn't involve Clone Wars, Lego or TFU.

[Mandalore The Shadow]

There wasn't anything wrong with TFU

[DarthParametric]

There was plenty wrong with it, but that's a discussion for another thread.

[Sabretooth]

Alright, so I've spent about one and a half hours playing this. Here's my thoughts:

 

1. This is BioShock. No two ways about it, it involves an air crash into an experimental facility and the gameplay involved exploring linear areas with a revolver, an assault rifle, a shotgun or a sniper rifle, and the backstory is filled in via tape recorders and notes that people have recorded and written for some unknown reason.

2. You have a female helper who is basically a Russian-skinned version of Alyx Vance.

3. Ammo conservation is quite the biggie here - run out of ammo and you're ****ed.

4. Checkpoints only. This is the most annoying part of the game, because you'll end up in a tough battle and you'll have to reload to 2 minutes before the battle instead of a quicksave just before or during the battle.

5. Russian people don't speak Russian. They speak Russian-accented English.

6. The feel is basically a mash-up of Half-Life 2 and BioShock with some Modern Warfare seasoning (the main villain looks like a further aged Imran Zakhaev).

7. Weapon design is nice, I particularly like the Assault Rifle with a fan on it. A fan!

8. Gameplay is full of non-surprises. Zombies who crowd around you. Explosive barrels. A military force trying to gun you down. For the record, we've been doing this for at least 10 years now.

9. A weapons upgrade system, another element borrowed from BioShock.

[DarthParametric]

To be fair, it's not like Bioshock actually invented any of its tropes.

[Sabretooth]

It didn't, but Singularity doesn't just borrow form BioShock's tropes, it takes BioShock whole and just takes away the content, putting in a Russian island and time travel.

 

It doesn't bring the horrible respawn system though, so the fights are actually challenging Raven-style. When I learnt that you respawn for free in BioShock, the game pretty much broke itself.

[Mandalore The Shadow]

So your overall thoughts? Good or Bad

[Sabretooth]

About 4-5 hours in, and I get more and more unimpressed with it.

 

The BioShock vibe is still strong, but the battles are, as I've said before, challenging - never a fight where you can let your guard down. The lack of grenades is interesting, but it would probably have been overkill considering the array of weapons you get, as well as the nifty TMD.

 

What I really don't like is that the game is extremely linear, going insofar as to have linear puzzle situations. You can imagine ways to solve the puzzle with the TMD, but you have to go just as the game says.

 

For example, there's a gate that's half-open, not enough to squeeze through. The game teaches you to use the TMD to break a crate, put it in the middle of the gate, reassemble it so that the gate opens up. Wouldn't it make more sense to use the TMD on the gate to shift it to a state when it was open?

 

It's also curious how using the TMD on enemies takes up your E-99 energy while you can use it at any time on objects with no penalty. So what, E-99 requires special power to work on living organisms? Doesn't seem to require that on those bizarre plants.

 

I'm tired of the audio logs now - they're little more than Russian-accented jabbering about how they need to get the hell out bef- too late, they got killed. How chilling.

 

In fact, there's nothing about any of the story moments that holds my interest anymore. You have these ghost-sequences that show how the bodies in this room came to be: this is barely interesting if you've played System Shock 2 or hell, Peragus from KotOR II.

 

The standard pseudo-cutscenes are supposed to imitate Half-Life 2, but they aren't nearly half as emotive or well-written. And what's a worse idea is to have them carry on while letting you head over to a weapon station, because that is a whole lot more interesting than whatever stupid plot advance is coming up next.

 

I've learnt *nothing* about the Katryna or whatever the hell her name is, and yet the game seems to require me to trust and help her. And then it puts a graffiti on the wall saying 'Don't trust her'. What the hell, Raven?

 

The sections where you go to 1950s are nice, they make for a neat change in the colour palette from the awfully boring orange-brown-red to some natural colours. But for the majority of the game, expect those colours, expect hideous mutants who don't look any more disgusting than the last time we saw them in Quake 4, Doom 3 and *every ****ing game*. They also have a little enemy that pops in your face and explodes. Because we've never fought something like that before.

 

I'm well past following the story now. The characters helping you are barely interesting, you don't know what the hell you're doing in the bizarre time-bending storyline, and it's extremely annoying to have them keep telling you to take the elevator or get a move on while you're upgrading your gun and augmenting your TMD. Shut the **** up, Baritone or Barislav or whatever the hell your name is.

 

So basically my point stands: a shoddy Half-Life 2 / BioShock mash-up that ends up forgetting what made the two games so great in the first place, and merely leeching off their trivial mechanics to provide a sub-decent shooter experience.

 

TL;DR: If you've really played every good FPS out there and can't wait for the good FPSs to come out later this year, then Singularity is an alright game to pass the time. Otherwise, try to get it on rental or QUESTIONABLE MEANS.

[Mandalore The Shadow]

Well this has been insightful I'm sorry it wasn't amazing but I still think ima check it out