First Level: Singularity

First person shooters often receive a bit of stick for adding nothing new to gaming and sticking to the same tried and tested formula. However, there have been variations to the standard run, cover, aim and shoot theme most notably in recent history with Bioshock.

The plasmid weapon system wasn’t just a gimmick but was a real game-changing mechanic, which brought tactics to the genre far beyond that of pistol, rifle, machine gun and sniper rifle and, along with exceptional story-telling, it elevated the title in many people’s minds above its peers. During Singularity’s pre-release period it was Bioshock I had most closely compared it to, obviously not from a failed utopian undersea , harvesting ADAM and fighting Big Daddies perspective, but instead being a story driven FPS with a weapon based ‘gimmick’.

When Singularity landed on my doormat I was pleasantly surprised, not because I’d forgotten that I’d ordered it, but because its release has sneaked up on me, catching me completely by surprise as Activision have barely mentioned it since the project was originally announced, many moons ago.

Anyway, enough preamble, you just want to know what Singularity’s like, right? Singularity’s developers, Raven Software have FPS pedigree, in most recent years with Quake 4 and 2009’s Wolfenstein. This time for Raven, rather than have Wolfenstein’s Nazis, experimenting with the occult and uncovering supernatural powers, we have 1950’s Cold War-era Soviets experimenting with a rare element, E-99, again unleashing a bewildering array of powers.

You’re part of an American black-ops team sent to investigate electro-magnetic activity on a a remote Russian island named Katorga-12, when an electro-magnetic pulse causes your helicopter to crash, separating you from your team. Through radio contact you arrange to rendezvous with your team members at a radio tower elsewhere on the island. As you take your first baby steps across the island you come across what appears to be a deserted village and it’s probably no surprise to anyone that’s ever played a videogame before, that this is where the problems start.

The first building you enter is a derelict visitors centre where the secrets of the island begin to make themselves known through discarded Cold War propaganda film reels promoting the experiments the scientists carried out. However, abandoned audio logs elude to a darker side to the experiments and just start to pull you deeper in to the story. Then right in front of your eyes the room in front of you ‘glitches’ and a you see a ghostly figure banging on the windows, and the hallway you’re walking down rather than being derelict, looks new, before it fades away to normality and its derelict present state. This is your first glimpse of the game’s distortion of time in action where your field of vision can flip between the present day and the past, then as you make your way through the hallways  nervously expecting something to happen you realise the game has you gripped. It isn’t long before the screen fades to the past again, and the room is on fire around you, with some scientists trying to escape.

After you aid one to safety you find a pistol and, again through audio logs, learn that the experiments have a very dangerous side effect and can cause mutations – it won’t take a genius to work out what’s awaiting you around the next corner – yep, some grotesquely mutated characters, It doesn’t take long to realise that shooting them doesn’t appear to do any damage and this is where dismemberment comes in. So early on we appear to have Bioshock’s tightly knit and ever evolving story, Wolfenstein’s weird supernatural-ness and Dead Space‘s ‘zombie’ dismemberment, one of the best features about one of this generations very best games.

The dismemberment isn’t an afterthought either, but rather a key mechanic of dispatching mutated enemies, shooting off the arms of the enemies hinders their ability to attack you, although they can still bite you, you can also shoot off their legs but if they still have arms they will claw their way across the ground to attack you.

At first look, I thought the graphics were fractionally sub-par and appeared to be the kind of grainy graphics that belong in the deepest, darkest cupboards of the PS3’s past. However I was wrong, the graphics fit the action superbly, aiding the title’s dual-era atmosphere.

The controls feel similarly fitting to the action and are neither too twitchy or heavy, both aiming and spinning your character around feels exactly as it should.

So far, so good you might think, and you’d be right but the game hasn’t revealed its best trick yet – the TMD (Time Manipulation Device). Along with the developer’s focus on creating a game-world dripping in atmosphere, the TMD is the star of the show. Far from just being a weaponry based gimmick, it is integral to progression through the game.

Basically with the TMD, you can move time backwards and forwards for various objects and people you aim it towards. Can’t see a way out of a room? Aim the TMD at a barrier and age it, until it disintegrates and clears your path. Faced with a Russian trooper attacking you, simply take aim and age him until he’s frail and can be easily dispatched. Need to get some machinery working? Simply reverse time to a point in the past when it was working. The TMD isn’t a gift that keeps on giving as it features the usual kind of rechargeable power-meter, don’t worry though as the mad Russian scientists have left plenty of E-99 lying around to recharge the meter.

The manipulation of time goes far beyond that of a gimmicky weapon and is the title’s unique selling point, it’s quite hard to convey just how well Raven have integrated it into not only just a weapons system but also a mechanic that brings unique puzzles to the genre.

In the early stages of playing the game, Singularity looks to be one of a very rare breed – an FPS which brings something new to the table. This in turn makes Activision’s almost total silence of its release completely baffling.

As it stands I’d whole-heartedly recommend Singularity to anyone who fancies a unique mix of Bioshock, Dead Space and Wolfenstein with enough original elements added to the mix to be able to stand on its own as a fine example of the genre.