Much like the recently reviewed Dark Void, Singularity has a great concept that grabs your attention from the gate. American’s stumble upon old Cold-War era Russian Technology involving time travel and…boom, you’ve got me, now you must impress me. Singularity tries just about everything trying to do so. Singularity pulls elements from some of the greatest games of the past 10 years in both the single and multiplayer. So much so, that the experience almost seems borrowed. Half-Life 2, Bioshock, Team Fortress 2 and Left for Dead are all blatantly ripped off throughout the game.
Your character (Renko) is a soldier in the US Military sent in with a team to investigate an electromagnetic surge coming from a remote island off the coast of Russia. This island is Katorga 12 (that’s an excellent Russian name), a secret Cold-War research island, that has been out of use since 1955. It was shut-down after an accident involving a Singularity that caused mass destruction on the island. Renko, very quickly finds himself in a heap of time traveling trouble. The story, despite being complex, is very easy to follow and your goals relating to the story are competently laid out. By the end story turns out to be the highlight of the entire experience.
The story unfolds swiftly by throwing alot of information at you very quickly. At about the 25% mark, the game hits auto pilot and the story development ramps up again at the end. What helps the story be so compelling is the atmosphere built by Raven. Using everything from thick (probably offensive) Russian accents to Russian signage everywhere, the game makes it clear that you are in a foreign land and you are not welcome. Going back and forth between 1955 and 2010 is done craftily and the set pieces are designed to respond differently in both times. The scene where you are on a boat that is quickly aging around you is nothing short of mind-blowing.
The way you progress through the levels is very much akin to that of Half Life 2. There are no load screens and everything is laid out in a linear fashion. The protagonist is silent, like Gordon Freeman, and his TMD (Time Manipulation Device) can pick up objects and shoot them (Gravity Gun anyone?). This TMD is attached to your left hand and is accessible at anytime with the left trigger. It is used to age objects and/or enemies backwards and forwards. Enemies can be reduced to dust in seconds or a broken box of health kits can be restored to new immediately. Think of the TMD as a time manipulating plasmid (A la Bioshock). Also, from Bioshock are the dozens of audio logs strewn about the world.
Singularity isn’t a survival horror game, but it is scary. Many times I jumped and yelled “WTF was that?” The scares are very environment based, with some of the enemies blending in extremely well. The horror elements of the game don’t feel forced. They feel more like a bi-product of the setting.
Running on the Unreal Engine, Singularity looks just as good if not better than other games on that engine (Batman: Arkham Asylum, Bioshock, or Shadow Complex), but as we all know, this generation of games is not about visual clarity, it about gameplay and Singularity’s gameplay is solid. Gun aiming is familiar and the TMD is responsive enough to use on just about any enemy. Another area where the game shines is the variety of ways to waste your enemy. With more than half a dozen guns, the Gravity Gun, Time Bubble, and the myriad of TMD attacks, which include turning your enemies on each other, each room you enter brings a host of possible destruction options.
The variety also leads to one of the games faults; most of the game is too easy. Once you get the Time Bubble feature (The TMD creates a bubble in which enemies are frozen in time), you may never die again. This is in sharp contrast to the beginning of the game where ammo is scarce and health packs are few and far between. Multiple times I came to rooms with 8-10 bad guys, armed with only 7 bullets and a knife that doesn’t instant kill. Once you get past the 33% mark the rest of the game is free sailing.
Another thing that bothered me was the lack of a final boss. Yeah, there is no final boss. Instead you are given a moral choice that leads to 1 of 3 different endings. All three endings are rad, but I didn’t really feel like I earned them, since there is no huge bad guy to strike down before the end. Also, as it stands, Singularity is pretty short, and with the huge variety of weapons and possible scenarios, I was left wanting more, a lot more. These things are all pretty minor and really don’t negatively affect the overall quality of the single player experience.
Despite my hatred for it I dabbled in the multiplayer portion of the game. One thing stood out immediately. This is a TF2 and L4D mash-up. Both multiplayer modes are class based like TF2 and have half the players playing as soldiers and the other half as monsters. There is a VS. mode, just like in L4D and there is a capture the flag-like mode as well. The multiplayer feels like a love-letter to Valve. On second thought, outside of the Bioshock influence, Singularity as a whole feels like a Valve Developed game.
What troubles me is the lack of attention Activision is giving the game. I have seen minimal advertising, and it has not been prominently featured in any Activision press gathering since its announcement. I don’t know if they have little faith in it, or if they have already decided not to promote it because they don’t have sequels planned, but it definitely feels like Singularity is getting the shaft.
Raven makes lot of good games (Hexen, X-men Legends, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and Heretic) and usually Activision uses them for licensed titles. There last 4 titles have been Quake 4, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Xmen Origins: Wolverine, and Wolfenstein. I see Singularity as a side project that the Raven team has been pouring their hearts into for years in their down time. The probably pitched it to Activision and they bit, but offered them the minimum PR budget so the game could be made on the cheap. Of course all of that is simply speculation, but I say, buy Singularity immediately. Sixty dollars may be a lot for a light weight game like this, but it will send a message to Activision telling them that we want good games and not a new Guitar Hero or Tony Hawk each year.
Verdict – Even if you think you’ve played it already, play it again.