If you are looking for a change of pace from the Middle-Eastern military first-person shooters that seem to dominate the market these days, Singularity is a nice change of pace and an enjoyable game that has come out of nowhere. While taking a lot of ideas from other Triple-A titles with a few original ideas of their own, Raven Software has made a game that may be the surprise of the summer for a lot of gamers.

Gameplay

Bioshock will be the first thing that comes to your mind during the first hour or so of gameplay. You crash onto a mysterious abandoned island, find audio logs from the former residents, and the first weapon you find is a revolver. Raven does a really great job of setting up the atmosphere during this opening and it takes its time setting up the story and encourages scavenging around in boxes and suitcases looking for ammo and the in-game currency of E99. The game evolves more into more of an action game in later sections than the Bioshock-like opening suggests. With the heaver action in the later half you will be glad to know that combat in this game is satisfying. The enemy AI isn’t the smartest I’ve experienced in an FPS but with the very fun and creative weapons and time manipulation attacks you always can tackle a battle in a different way. One notable weapon is the grenade launcher. Its secondary fire releases a grenade ball that you can guide around and even make it jump. This leads to a great Metroid homage Easter egg if you look carefully when you first pick it up. Puzzles are usually nothing more than find a crate to stand on or expand a rusted broken down crate to its old new condition using the time manipulation device under a partially open garage door to open it, but these are not that frequent and don’t take away from the pacing.

Multiplayer

One area of the game that I figured would be completely throw-away was the multiplayer. With games adding a MP mode these days just to add a bullet point to the back of the box, I expected a complete waste of time. Fortunately the MP in the game is a blast. It may not last you a year like Call of Duty and it doesn’t have a wide variety of modes but it’s fun and hectic enough to keep you playing to earn most of the MP achievements or trophies. The basic gameplay is soldiers versus creatures. The soldiers have the weapons and time manipulation attacks of the single player and the opposite team is composed of the creatures with their attacks. This mode is very similar to the Versus mode in Left for Dead. The creatures can’t take much damage but get a soldier alone and he is in serious trouble. The attacks of the creatures are ripped almost exactly from L4D also, there is a Phase Tick which can latch on and control a soldier like the Jockey, and the Revert who spews toxic vomit like Valve’s Boomer. Some may be turned off by the supposed lack of depth, with only two modes and no upgrades, and the copycat attacks, but if gamers give this mode a chance they should get a satisfying number of hours out of the MP mode in this game.

Sound/Voice/Music

This game has very impressive atmospheric sound. You will hear creatures around corners, screams, and other sounds designed to put you on edge and it usually works as intended. Voice acting is well done, with the obligatory Nolan North appearance, while some may be turned off by the slightly cheesy Russian accents. Music is nothing remarkable. Guns sound appropriate, if not quite as powerful as I would have wanted.

Graphics

Singularity is a decent looking game. The art and architecture of the environments look really good, with some great old sci-fi looking lab equipment, while the character models and creatures look alright but nothing remarkable. The Unreal engine, which powers this game, tends to make all the games that use it look similar but Raven software does their best to differentiate their game with the art style.

Story

The story is interesting enough to drive you along, with twists and a few surprises due to the time manipulation aspect, but isn’t as in depth or engaging as Bioshock. The game has three different endings depending on who you side with at the end, with each of them offering a satisfying and unexpected outcome. Achievement or Trophy hunters will be glad to know you can just reload your save after the credits and experience them all.

Conclusion

It’s a real shame Activision has put zero marketing in to this game. In my opinion, Activision allowed Raven to make a pet project after years of churning out licensed games in the X-Men and Wolfenstein series’. Once they saw the final product and how it would be a struggle to turn it into an annual franchise they bailed on it and just put it out without any fanfare. It is a real shame that this impressive, fun to play game gets no marketing budget but COD: Black Ops which will come out later in the year will get millions of marketing dollars pushing it in your face when it may be the same or possibly a less quality of game.

Played SP to completion in 10 hours or so on Xbox 360. Played around 5-6 hours of multiplayer. Earned 42 of 50 achievements for 785 of 1000 points.

Pro: Atmosphere, Story, Combat, Time Manipulation, Multiplayer

Cons: Some dumb AI, some weak weapons, a lot of borrowed ideas, short single player, multiplayer audience won't last long

Satisfying Spoiler: Nolan North’s character get shot in the head very early in the game

Review originally posted at:

www.geekopinions.com