Video Game Review : Singularity

 

Time Travel AND a Secret Russian Island? Sign Me Up!

Singularity, a time-traveling FPS developed by Raven Software, starts out simple enough: investigate rumors on Katorga-12, an island off the coast of Russia, of secret military experiments.  After an unexplained helicopter crash onto the island, you begin your adventure as Captain Renko, a member of a U.S. military reconnaissance team sent to the island.  As you make your way across the island, electromagnetic bursts of energy start to shift the island in and out of the timeline, phasing between 2010 and 1955, during the height of the Cold War, and where the “Singularity” first occurred on the island.  What follows is an interesting plotline filled with time-travel shifts that are sure to give you some “Ah-Ha!” moments.  I found the plot to be pretty well done.  I am a big fan of anything time travel, so I was definitely satisfied after playing through the storyline.  Even the ending gives you choices to make, giving you control over the final outcome of the game.  It would have been nice to been given some choices to make during the middle of the game, but this works just fine too.

The TMD turning enemies into dust.

The gameplay in Singularity borrows heavily from many sources, a major one being Bioshock, with its collection of health items.  To its credit though, Singularity manages to carve out its own niche, combing all of these borrowed ideas, and creating its own fun and unique gameplay additions.  The game gives you control over the TMD (time manipulation device).  This enables the player to turn enemies into dust, or turn back or fast forward the clock on items, like a safe.  Point the TMD at a safe and watch it disintegrate into dust, granting the player the rewards previously locked up.  It also acts as a “gravity gun” a la Half-Life 2, except not as rewarding or as fun.  It mainly is used to pick up items in a few sections to complete puzzles.  While the TMD is a blast to mess around with against enemies, its actual uses beyond blasting bad guys is pretty limited.  It would have been nice to see the TMD used a lot more often, since, you know, this is a TIME TRAVEL game.  When not using the TMD to destroy your enemies, the game runs the normal gambit of shotguns, pistols, and a machine gun.  One notable entry, however, saves the game from being completely helpless in new weapon invention.  The Seeker is a rifle that shoots bullets that can be steered, which is pretty frickin’ awesome.  The only downside is that you only get the gun during a few sections of the game, which is a bummer considering how fun this would be to use a lot more than a couple times.

Repairing a broken walkway.

A high point for Singularity is its surprising presentation qualities.  It does a great job graphically to show you a dilapidated and aged military base in 2010, and another great job shoving you into 1955 to show a bustling island filled with non-decrepit buildings.  The effects are well done, and the atmosphere is rich with detail, with a welcome presentation showing what the island has to offer at the beginning of the game.  Its little stuff like this that make the world more believable.  The time travel aspects of the game are awesome as well, such as a broken staircase slowly being pieced back together, or the disintegration of a soldier being hit with the TMD.  Some minor nitpicks are that some of the details look downright ugly, such as a pile of rope, which just looks like one big blob color to look like rope.  But that is besides the point, because I’m not really looking at things like that when I’m too busy shifting through portals.

Overall, Singularity is a great time-travel distraction filled with cool powers from the TMD and some exciting set pieces.  Despite the lack of flexibility with the TMD, heavily borrowing of elements from other games, and some graphical hiccups, Singularity is one hell of a fun FPS.  Just make sure you get the DeLorean up to 88 mph.

4 out of 5 Stars