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paecmaker
05-11-2011, 02:35 PM
Ive chose to review singularity

http://www.digitalbattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/singularity_logo.jpg



Singularity is linear FPS(with some sligthly horror elements) developed by raven.

Story

The game is set on a fictional island named katorga 12. In the cold war the soviets found a new metal named Element 99. They built up a hole civilisation, including laboratories, a village and harbours on the island just because of the E 99. E 99 was very poweful and had enormous use but it was also very unstable. After an accident the place was shut down, evacuated and forgotten.

Present day, one of USAs spy sattelites is destroyed by an enormous energy pulse and a special force team is sent there. You play as one of those soldiers, as you approach katorga 12 another energy pulse makes the choppers go down. You wake up alone on a small dock and your friends are missing. But something doesnt stand right on the island, strange things like corpses vaporating and helicopters that rust instantanishly are happening. You can also see like gosthly flashbacks from previous inhabitants.

http://www.bjornolsson.se/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/singularity.jpg

Some spoiler alerts.
When you by accident change the time the island changes, The laboritorie reactor starts and strange creatures soon appear. Time travels always make the plots way more complicated and this game is no exception. Sometimes I didnt know what I was doing and the strange thing after the other appeard.


Gameplay

The gameplay in Singularity is except some twists highly standard. you use different medkits and syringes to heal from wounds.(syringes are used direct while you can save the medkits)

In the first part of the game you have only weapons but later on you get the trademark of the game. The TMD(time manipulation device) This little beauty sits on your hand and can at first only age/youth objects and some other things but get stronger the longer you play. One good thing is that you are almost never forced to use the TMD in battles, Its easier but they let you use what tactics you want. The game is also more funnier the later it goes. More enemy sorts and more action.

The puzzles in the game is based almost only on the TMD and is often hilariously easy. I would really want some more difficult puzzles as breaks in the action. There are calmer paths but they arent that many.

The action also changes in the game. You will face both normal soldiers and strange creatures and everything will need different approachs. They are accually pretty well done. The normal non human enemy is unique with its very noticable skills.

as you play you will collect special vials containing special E99(stangely its often in the garbage) You use this to upgrade your TMD and skills. For weapons you need weapon upgrade points, One point one upgrade.
The TMD can be upgraded many times and every "use" can be upgraded. These upgrades are in stages so you can upgrade several times on one.

http://www.next-gen.biz/files/imagecache/article_content_360x270/singularity_1.jpg

The skill upgrades are a little different, you can only have one at once and you can only use them if you find a blueprint of it.

The weapons are mostly funny, there arent so many but the ones that are have nice design and most of them are funny to use and many have also secondary uses. For example the sniper rifles secondary slow down time and so on.
A list of the weapons

Pistol- slow but powerful

Assault rifle- your average rifle

shotgun- the best choice for close quarter

sniper- a real fleshy rifle, and it comes with slow mo.
A grenade launcher- your average grenade launcher, except that you can roll
the grenades and steer them.

The nail gun- you nr1 weapon if you like nailing guys with exploding bolts, and it comes with heat vision(very slow fire).

Heavy minigun- Think terminator 2.

The seeker- A real badass weapon with steerable shots, only thing is that you can only use the shots onboard, no more.

(Make room for changes here)




The game is very bloody and arms, heads and legs fly all over the screen. The TMD can do some really fleshy attacks also.

graphics

The engine used is a heavily modified version of the unreal engine 3 wich is now turning old. Whike the graphics are ok and rather good time to time they arent extodinary anymore. There are things that feels like they are glowing wich I am annoyed by but it isnt such a big problem. When playing this I noticed that the textures was slow and framerate also where bad in some places. And most cicilians look the same.

The sounds in the game are doing a good job, but sometimes I hate the voices fake russian accents.

Points.

story- 7/10- advanced for that kind of game but can be very confusing.
gameplay-7/10- The battles are funny but they could have done more whith the TMD
graphics- 6/10- ok graphics but I saw many texture problems and the engine has been slightly overused now.
Sound- 7/10- good but not perfect, the russian voices disturb me.
Feeling- 8/10- the place, katorga 12 is really scary sometimes and the feeling is always with you.

Total points- 7/10 - Its a good game but they could have done so much more.

LiNuX
05-11-2011, 02:48 PM
Sounds like an interesting game. Is it multiplayer? or single? And graphics look decent, I'm not much of a graphics guy, I'll play if it has good gameplay, but I doubt I'll get to play this one. I have my eyes set on newer games.

Good review!

paecmaker
05-11-2011, 03:02 PM
Its a single player game for the most of it. There is a multiplayer but from what Ive heard its very unbalanced.

The graphics are mostly good but It cant beat the newest games and I had some texture problems.

Fr0stByte
05-11-2011, 03:16 PM
from what i can see the game looks awesome, but i would like to see a decent mp....is this still in testing or has it been released?

paecmaker
05-11-2011, 03:17 PM
from what i can see the game looks awesome, but i would like to see a decent mp....is this still in testing or has it been released?

It was released one or two years ago. But not many play the MP.

Ilyich Valken
05-11-2011, 03:55 PM
It was released June 25th (EU) and June 29th(NA) of last year. There is a multiplayer, but it really wasn't that great in my opinion. It's kind of like how Dead Space 2 multiplayer is (one side vs another where you can choose which of the enemy creatures you want to be, but in a TDM setting) but it wasn't implemented as well as DS2's.