Singularity™

I'm sorry, but if I can buy three console copies of a thirteen year old game and still end up paying less than $40 after taxes, something is seriously wrong.

I have this game on PS3. A few weeks ago I sadly had to offload some of my games and Singularity had pretty much no trade-in value so I just kept it and tried to played it in last few days. It's just trash. It has all the bad 'qualities' of the FPS of the era - extreme corridor linearity, 'cinematic' moments such as your character crashing through the floor with his hands covering his face - oh how impressive! Despite it being a sci-fi semi-horror game, it also tries super hard to be Call of Duty. So you have only 2 weapons because we need realism when shooting time-displaced mutants and if you have a partner, they never stop shouting 'stay frosty' etc. during the mutant onslaught. The weapons are HORRIBLE: assault rifle with a ridiculous knockback, shotgun with an effective range of about 10 centimeters, pistol that needs 5 headshot to take down the basic mutant, sniper and railgun which... Better not mention them. The story is absolutely pathetic, nobody even bats an eye about what's going on and just gives you orders 'go there, do this, fix history' like it's the most common thing in the word. Oh there are also some System Shock-ish element thrown in, completely pointless. Someone explain to me why a school child is leaving audio logs?? Why is the main scientist leaving notes around stating how he has to keep secrets from his boss?? No, this thing makes no sense on any level. Since it's made by Raven, I can only assume this game was cobbled together using rejected bits and pieces from Quake 4 and Wolfenstein. Seriously Raven... Raven!!!

Shiny gfx won`t gloss over the fact that this game contains the worst elements of FPS design: dumb AI and extreme corridoritis. In this context, the time-manipulation is just a gimmick, totally underdeveloped. As such, there is no avoiding the matter of the price: nearly 30$, 6 years after original release? Wow. Digital distribution wasn`t supposed to be a way to sell old lame games at inflated prices. Avoid until inevitable <10$ bargain sale.

I recently got the game based on a glowing recommendation by my favourite reviewer, praising the level design, Half-Life levels of innovation - boy, was I disappointed. Story: It's basically a B movie premise being served by blatant exposition. Notes, recordings, even videos are literally everywhere - on roofs, in ventilation, under kid's beds. The way these interrupt the gameplay can be very frustrating and after a while, you'll just start skipping these altogether. Not great in a game that takes its own story very seriously. Level design: You know how in good games you get an idea which areas are exploration and which lead to the next level? Forget it here. You go on searching a room and suddenly a door closes behind you and you're left lamenting all the uncollected loot you just unknowingly left behind. This makes you constantly evaluate, which paths "look like" they lead to the next level. Scripted sequences: Everywhere. Even combat seems scripted. For example, during one of the first firefights with enemy soldiers, unaware, I left the game on and when I got back after about five minutes, I was standing in the middle of a firefight with everybody missing me, enemies running around, changing covers. This was on the hardest difficulty. Only after you kill about ten enemies, you are suddenly no longer invincible, but your buddy needed to say his lines... Gameplay in a nutshell: At the beginning, you team up with a buddy who is all tactical, changing covers, saying stuff like "scan that exit" or "clear left", while you're running around like an idiot, jumping on crates, searching dumpsters, reading notes, turning on recordings, watching movies, picking up in game currency that you have, at this point, no idea what it's for and when your buddy stacks at a door and dramatically shouts at you to kick the door in - that's the last thing you want to do. If you like it, awesome, but buyers beware!

Played this a year ago on PC, expecting some masterpiece from reviews, but finding only a complete letdown. Firstly, the FOV was locked to ~65, and I had to use Flawless Widescreen to force it higger - first black mark on a PC title. The running speed is also fairly slow, the weapon size is huge and can't be changed and the environments are small and heavily segmented for consoles' sake. Secondly, the game is far, far far too easy, I played it on the hardest difficulty and barely ever died or felt pushed: the enemies are very weak and the AI is dumb, the weapons are overpowered from the start, and you keep getting upgrade points and ammo, so by the halfway mark of a fairly short game (5-6 hours) you're a walking god. This wasn't fun gameplay for me. Thirdly, the game takes every bad choice modern military shooters do: the plot is insultingly stupid, the gameplay is completely and utterly linear, there's constant use of boring "interactive" cutscenes and regular-boring cutscenes, and the main gameplay mechanic of time-manipulation is scripted into puzzles an 8 year-old could solve and into a weapon completely inferior to the rest of your regular arsenal. And finally, I would not pay $30 on this 6 year-old disappointing title - $10 would be more persuasive, considering Steam is selling it for less than GOG right now (on its "release" day here on the side). It's not completely awful, the graphics are nice and the game actually works as intended, so I can't give this 1 star, but if you're a fan of old school FPS, avoid this completely or find an alternate way to test it yourself before buying.