From looking at some gameplay videos and interviews, I thought Singularity might be a fun, original FPS, with different gameplay than the average military shooter or Halo clone. As such, I had good expectations for the game, thinking it might be more interesting than the average modern FPS.

In a time where every FPS looks and plays the same, I had hopes that Singularity would be one of the few to divert from what FPS are nowadays.

Read on and see if it ended up being what I hoped it would be, or if it went for the “we’ll be the same as everyone” route!

Developer: Raven Software
Publisher: Activision
Date of Release: June 29th 2010
Platforms: Playstation 3, PC, Xbox 360

Genre: First-person shooter
Rated M for Mature

Presentation
Brown, and darkness. Everywhere. It’s very boring to look at. There’s barely any colors, just different hues of brown. The enemy design is basic zombies/savage mutants, nothing very interesting or original. The graphics are, overall, not very interesting to look at. And it has some graphical glitches, like textures not loading and textures being super low-res when you get close to them, taking some time to get to normal.

Sounds are… basic FPS stuff… I guess the twist here is that it uses basic horror movie sound design, where the music becomes more tense in parts that the developers want you to believe there’s tension (when there’s actually not), with the classic “surprise!” sound when something “scary” pops up. Just jump scares, nothing actually scary. It’s not great, but I guess everything in the sound design is appropriate at least.

Story
You play as a soldier going to explore a weird base that has been destroyed a long time ago and, after an accident, you’re stranded there. So now you have to find out what happened, and eventually get out of there… or, maybe, try to prevent what happened in the past by travelling in time? After a bit of gameplay, you receive the Time Manipulation Device, which enables you to control time a bit, at a limit, and also enables you to open rifts through time to change the events of the past, trying to prevent the island to become a ruin.

The story, overall, is okay, but feels too linear. The whole time travel plot device is just used in a few key moments, and it never really feels like your actions actually changes anything in the game world, but instead it just feels like you’re following a script. I feel that a more open world and more freedom rather than constantly being stuck in corridors would have benefited the game a lot. Lots of games are like that, just you following a script, but here the “script” is way too ovious. This is one of the few times where I feel that an open world would really benefit the gameplay and story.

Gameplay
The basic gameplay is what you’d expect from the average modern FPS. Aim at things, shoot them, go to the next room, and continue until the end. It controls and feels just like every other modern FPS. You have a few basic weapons: a pistol, a machine gun, a shotgun, a sniper rifle, a grenade launcher… nothing special. Though one thing that is a bit different is that you can slow down time when sniping, even before getting the Time Manipulation Device (TMD). There is one cool weapothoughn , called the Seeker, which slows down time, and you can control the bullet, which always kills normal enemies in one hit (not as cool as the Redeemer in Unreal Tournament, which was similar but more awesome, but still). But otherwise it’s very standard stuff. You also have a melee attack, which is boosted once you get the TMD.

What I love about this game is that you have a health bar, rather than stupid regenerating health. You can refill it with health packs, and stimpacks. Stimpacks are instant use, and health packs are carried around for you to use when you need them. It is rather funny that the health packs are just you putting a bandage on your right wrist all the time, the devs must have been laughing their asses off at the one. So you have to manage your health instead of just having to go in cover and wait to get your health back. More modern FPS need health bars.

There’s 3 enemy types: soldiers, mutants and those small fast-moving spider things that chase you and explode on contact (they’re incredibly annoying). There’s a few different types of mutants, but they’re all similar in how they attack. And there’s a few types of soldiers, which is really just a matter of what weapon they’re using. There’s a few boss fights but they’re very easy and boring.

Time Manipulation Device
The big thing about this game is the TMD, which you acquire early in the game. It acts, basically, as a second weapon you hold in your left hand. It has various functions: you can age objects/enemies, or revert them to younger age. You can’t chose if you’ll age something or revert it, the game “chooses” for you. And there’s only a handful of objects that can be aged/reverted. Some enemies are affected differently by this, such as one of the basic mutant types that gets slowed down when you do that. Humans just die. Making objects older can break them down. The TMD can also grab things from afar, like grenades/rockets, and throw them back. It can also charge a ball of energy, which, when you shoot it, creates a bubble where time goes slower for some time, used in the same puzzle tons of time in the game, and not much else. And, at certain point in the games, you’ll use the TMD to open time rifts and go to the past.

What sucks about the TMD is that it doesn’t feel like it’s anything special. It’s just a second weapon that you’re carrying at the same time as the other. You’ll use it like a weapon most of the time, and the few puzzles you go through with it are cheap and uninventive. The TMD does nothing that hasn’t been done by normal weapons in other games, and that is wasted potential right there.

In combat, the TMD has a few uses. Aging enemies is obvious, but you can age cover to make it crumble, slow down time to flank enemies in small areas, use the aging power to turn soldiers into mutants to have them fight their allies, grab grenades and rockets to send them back at enemies… and that’s about it. Nothing that’s never been done before, and sadly the lack of imagination on the developer’s part makes what could have been a very fun device to use rather boring.

Leveling
The last element I can talk about is leveling. As you travel through the island, you find E99 tech points. Those can be used in upgrade stations to gain more health, more TMD energy, higher effectiveness of health packs, upgrades to TMD skills, and perks that you can equip (such as higher accuracy and various types of health boosts). This enables for a little bit of customization, though nothing game-changing.

You also find weapon tech points, which can be used to make your weapons stronger. Each weapon has 3 stats to upgrade, each can be upgraded twice. The boosts are rather minor though.

Overall
My hopes were that Singularity would be different from the usual FPS. I hoped it would join the likes of Mirror’s Edge, Borderlands and Portal in trying something different in the genre and doing it well. After an hour of playing, all my hopes were shattered. And none of that changed for the rest of the game . It’s nothing different from anything else out there. Like I say with so many games this generation, this is wasted potential. It could have been so awesome, but the devs decided that the best thing to do was to be exactly the same as every other FPS, and it fails because of that. If the devs had used their imagination a bit and really gone crazy with the whole time control thing, it could have been a GREAT game. Now it’s just a run-off-the-mill FPS that this generation already has TONS of.

If you’re a big fan of FPS, you should be happy with it since it doesn’t offer anything different than what you’re used to. If you’re hoping for something different than other FPS, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Pros and Cons
Pros
- It uses a life bar! No regenerating health!
- If you like online, you should have some fun with this before you go back to your multiplayer FPS of choice

Cons
- Boring graphics
- Doesn’t try to be different from other FPS, despite having a great concept

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