Singularity with Bonus Exclusive Graphic Novel

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Singularity is an excellent one-player FPS experience; unfortunately it is only about 6-7 hours long. These few hours of gameplay are extremely fun, and I plan to tackle it again as you can approach the many awesome set-pieces and enemy encounters in a myriad of ways, but you could really get away with knocking this game out twice in a single rental. Unless you are getting it out of the discount bin this is probably not worth a purchase a 6 hour campaign in a game like CoD:MW2 can be forgiven when the multiplayer is the real meat of the game, but Singularity is campaign-focused, so it is ultimately just lacking in content.

That said, Singularity does very well what most games do poorly: it steals from other great games while adding in a few ideas of its own. The Time-Manipulation Device (TMD) around which most of the game is based more or less functions like the gravity gun in Half-Life 2, but you can also use it to create time-freezing bubbles (like in Ratchet and Clank: a Crack in Time), or to 'fast-forward' or 'rewind' enemies and some items in time. You will use all of these functions to solve puzzles and kill Russian troops of the past and present as well as some interesting creatures (giant spiders that launch rockets out of their mouths? check). The 'feel' of the game is ripped straight from Bioshock, including similar colors and abandoned environments; ditto for the pickups and upgrades, though the weapons lockers and TMD stations aren't as inspired as the vending machines in Bioshock. There isn't nearly as much insane variety for your non-gun hand either. But the weapons that go boom are a heck of a lot cooler in Singularity, and the core shooting mechanics are just smoother and more satisfying. Here the game takes from Call of Duty with a nice, quick auto-aim when you go down sights. It compiles the best elements of some of the best games and puts them all together, and they, surprisingly, all blend well into what somehow ends up a moderately original experience.

The reason this all succeeds so well is because of pacing and variety. I am honestly ok with the short length of the campaign because you rarely go through the same type of gameplay twice. You will be shooting down troops in standard FPS style, sneaking by some ferocious creatures in another, battling a giant RE5 inspired boss on a collapsing train in the next, even working through a time-shifting, rocking old ship in the harbor at one very cool point. The enemies vary a lot and there is a ton of choice in weapons: pick the pair you like and you will be able to upgrade them and stick with them, or move on to something different. They are all there to be checked out of weapons lockers all along the way. Or you can focus on TMD powers and kill enemies in less bullet-oriented ways. It all comes together to form an experience that is scripted throughout, but leaves a lot of player choice as to how to make it through a well-crafted sequence.

As for the basics, the graphics are good but not top tier, and the story is entertaining but nothing to write home about. It all fits well within the game's genre and world though. There are definitely worse ways to spend money on a game, but the lack of content on the disc could be a serious issue for many out there. I am definitely satisfied with it but perhaps it would have been more successful as a digital release with a lower price tag. It is a great game, it is just hard to justify as a full MSRP title.

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Let me first say that if this game had come out last month I might have overlooked it. I decided to buy it on release day because there is not much coming out this month and I need something to play. I was unsure how I would like this game because the reviews have been somewhat lower than I expected they would be. I love first person shooters, however; so I took the chance. I'm glad I did. This game is great, just not perfect. It reminds me of Timeshift/Doom3/Quake4/Wolfenstein. The controls are tight and are mapped like Call of Duty with the exception of a few new controls. The atomosphere is gloomy but well presented. I won't go into too much detail as to not ruin any suprises, but if you are looking for a good sci-fi themed shooter look no further.

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Singularity isn't going to be setting records as a great Sci-Fi shooter but it is a game that is a lot of fun, and has moments of old school FPS that some shooter games today seem to be unable to reproduce. However does it stand strong or did the "singularity" devour the gameplay as well as time itself?

Gameplay: As I mentioned earlier, Singularity has a nice old school feel to it at times. It reminded me when shooters were just simply shooters. Run through a level fighting enemies, not overloading you with graphic awe. I attempted Singularity on "HARD" and was actually a little disappointed by this. Hard really wasn't hard. It felt like "easy" w/ enemies that did ungodly amount of damage to you. It did make me use strategy though instead of hulking through areas like I have super armor or something. The gameplay mechanics are a nice blend of well polished FPS mechanics, with a very nifty time manipulation element that lets you influence certain objects in your environment(E99 infused stuff) and then pulls various mechanics from other games. The "chrono-step" is my favorite. Similar to Dead Space's objective tracking system, but this looks into the future to find out where you are going to go

Sound/Story: Very creative storyline that has multiple endings (3 to be exact). The game keeps you guessing as to who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. Hidden messages in time, mysterious warnings, the more time changes the more confusing things get. Essentially you are a US soldier sent to an Island outside of Russia to investigate a radiation burst. Next thing you know, time changed and things have gone to hell; you must embark on your quest to try and repair time. Sound is really good. The weapons sound crisp and clean, with the voice overs being decent.

** This game lacks Subtitles, which is a bit of a downer especially for the hearing-impaired or someone like me who just enjoys having em on **

Graphics/Presentation: Graphics are very good, not ground breaking or jaw-dropping but they are crisp and do a good job setting a creepy environment. I was actually more impressed with enemy animations. Very realistic. It was nice to shoot an enemy and it wasn't an insta-kill shot , you can see them on the floor trying to crawl away or get back up. I had a rare time where an enemy even faked it on me and shot me from behind.

**Presentation is where this game honestly loses a star and why I am going into a little detail with it. The game is short, but falls in line with the 'norm' these days it seems. On HARD I beat it in about 7hrs which means on Easy it probably is a 4-5hr play through. Check points save your progress but once in a while they seem spaced fairly far apart. While the puzzles and gameplay were lots of fun, the game starts to rely heavily on the same puzzle but not to the point where it makes the game annoying. As the game starts to approach the end it just feels squished together. The pacing is off and I started to find myself rushing through areas simply to get to more action --In other words the game probably could of used just a tiny bit more polishing towards the last hour of gameplay

Length/Replay: As said above, the game is about 4-5hrs on easy, 7ish on Hard. 3 different endings make for good replay value however, if you simply select "continue" after you beat the game you can literally Re-beat the game and get a different ending thus taking away the replay value of the campaign(I still will play through it again though, try to find stuff I missed) The game has Multi-player included but it really doesn't hold up well compared to other MP shooter games

Overall Score: 83%

Singularity is a fun game. Worth a $60 purchase, ehhh probably not. However $30 would be a great deal for the game. It has a very polished shooting element with a decent storyline. The game is a lot of fun and it is nice to be able to use the power of TIME itself to influence your enemies and environment. What really held this game back was a lack of polish to the pacing and constant recycling of the same puzzle element; plus a very generic, almost pointless tacked on MP(that has almost the same number of achievements/trophies than the game itself?!) Still, Singularity is definitely worth adding to your collection. It is one of those games that you can return to after a few months and have just as much fun as when you first got it

** Seeker Rifle should be mandatory for all future FPS games **

**Bonus: The included Graphic Novel. Honestly, don't pay extra just to get the novel. The novel itself is well put together and uses color images but really doesn't add much to the game. It essentially details the discovering of E99 in 1940. Really serves no purpose since the discovery of E99 isn't a shocking revelation as the game tells you this 10minutes in.

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The main reason for this game to get 5 stars is that everything it does, it does great. I've played other shooters and this is one of my favorites.

The story sets in Katorga 12, an island where you'll be playing in the present and past fighting soldiers and monsters, where scientifics have been messing up with E99, an element with special properties that has lead to experiments and the later fall of the island. I must say, though, that for me it's not the story what got me hooked, it's all the weapons, all the things you can do with your TMD and how well implemented all the mechanics are. All the level design, what's happening and what comes next is just very well planned and comes smoothly in a solid game.

In some games we find attempts for really bright ideas, but the implementation brings it down to a nice try. That, in my opinion, is not the case for Singularity. It is true that it uses some previous ideas, as I find it pretty similar to Bioshock at some points (like the flashback scenes, the "telekinesis" thing that we saw in Bioshock, the Pulse) but, as I said, it implements them pretty well and in creative ways. It also adds more stuff to it, as you'll have this device (the TMD) that will be able to make a lot of things like making a slow-motion-bubble where everything inside or touching it will almost not move; reverting soldiers which basically turns the soldiers into puking monsters (doesn't it sound cool?); aging or return to the past some objects & bad guys, which will be basic at some points in the game; and the ones mentioned before.

The weapons are a blast aswell, it has the standard ones like revolver, shotgun, machine gun, sniper & gatling-like gun. Along with those it hase some pretty original ones that put that cherry on top, like the Seeker. It's a powerful rifle that will get rid of the enemies in one shot, but the coolest thing is that you drive the bullet. You move it in the direction you want with the right stick from a view behind the bullet, by the time everything is slowed down and you watch the soldiers being eliminated when you hit them. So you just get cover and have some fun. The other one is the Desthex Launcher, which lets you drop a round grenade to the floor which you can control, so you don't even have to see your enemies, you just roll that metroid-like ball over the floor until you hear the soldiers scream "granada" and release the button for a sweet elimination!

The graphics are very well done. Of course it has some blurry textures here and there (which game doesn't?) but overall it has a neat look with a lot of details, in that post-apocalyptic fashion some games use nowadays. When the game looks specially good is in the rainy scenes because with the Unreal Engine they got a cool effect that looks like the water is running down from the objects, and of course, because of the light reflection the wet scenes look better than others.

Last but not least, the multiplayer is awesome!! It only has two modes, but it doesn't need more. The first one is Extermination where you have two teams, one is the soldiers and the other is the monsters. The monsters defend the current base while soldiers try to get to it. This will be harder or easier according to the team's abilities and coordination. The monsters don't have weapons but you can choose from 4 flavors, each having their special abilities: the Zek (basically melee attackers who can turn "invisible"), the Reverts (slow ones that puke and throw mines), the ticks (small bugs that can walk on walls and control humans by jumping on their faces), and the radions (big armored spiders that shoot some sort of lasers). There are also 4 types of soldiers, with different abilities: healing, teletransporting, pulsing (throwing enemies back and hurting them) and shielding. Overall it is pretty fun and entertaining, very well thought and executed. The other mode is Soldiers vs. Monsters, which I haven't played yet but I find the name pretty self-explanatory.

Oh yes, and the comic book that comes with this edition is pretty cool, good quality & drawings. haven't read it all yet but it's good.

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Loved how the game is in graphics but also the story line which is one like dayjavu. Bad ass guns and slow motions that are cool to play in this game.