Singularity is one of those games that I wish I had played back in the day when I really got into gaming on Xbox 360. It has a great single-player campaign, a great arsenal of games to use, and the level design is pretty top notch. The game has a pretty slow start where it eases you into the horrors that happened on the island you are trapped for the whole game and it really gets going once you get access to the TMD which lets you age people to dust, blast enemies to shred, and create literally human suicide bombers. This is a great game that was overlooked back in the day by everyone, but its definitely worth your time.

At first, it looks like a modern shooter with different guns and weird creatures and…Nolan North, but after a while it shows itself to be more of a Wolfenstein but with Russians. Then a Half Life and to be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about any of that but the idea has to do with time travel and being able to age and deage stuff. I've seen people say that it's not as good as it could be and it's really not but color me impressed when I saw that you could age a crate to make it all smushed, put it under a cracked open door and then de-age it to puff it up, prying the door open enough to crawl under. Like, tell me that's not cool.

But like the games I said, they explore these types of things a little more (aside from maybe the newer Wolfenstein games) but what's there is definitely fun to see and after this mechanic was introduced, it only seemed to get better.

You find a new element on the periodic table called E99 which you use to upgrade your tool and weapons and health so it's fun to collect. You also find weapon upgrades and blueprints so you can really fine tune it.

This is the Pc version and for some reason, sometimes it'll shoot more than I mean so say a shotgun will shoot twice instead of once, but it's not a big issue. I played it on normal and after the opening hours, ammo wasn't really as scarce.

It does have a thing or two to learn about storytelling though. The amount of times I heard the names Demichev and Barisov, that'd be the plot, it didn't have subtitles so it was a lot of mumbo jumbo most of the time. The beginning introduces you to this Demichev but that's about it, they talk about what a dystopia he's wrought but they barely show the guy doing it. You're expected to just wait until the end for a less than stellar battle and stupid reveal.

Kathryn is one of the reasons I started liking the game, she's a little like Alyx but she dies. I spoiled it for you, yes but the way I just explained it has about the same effect as it did in the story. It's an off-screen death after various time messages written on the wall warning you that it's going to happen and how it happens is-

You reverse the time on this boat to bring it back up and running long enough to get something off of it (as something of that mass will revert after so long) so there's this really cool segment of you escaping a ship that's falling apart around you and you're just about out but over the radio, Kathryn says that that's it, she's going in to get it. I was less than a minute before I got out and Barisov's there like "Yeah, she's gone but we can't let her death be in vain"…like never to be mentioned again, no sendoff, just written out of the story. That is until the ending, which I'll get to.

They give you an end game type ability where you can infinitely blast your impulse. It's kind of OP, I get it but I think if they were going to do that, they could've done better. You know how in Metroid, you upgrade your cannon to go through walls and in Super have this super duper blaster and in Dread just an annihilator. It should've been more like that than "infinite ammo", I like the color change from orange to blue but there's no visual difference other than that, it's not more powerful, just more, it doesn't even reach farther.

'Singularity' as in, the singular game this will have. There are 4 different endings and the main one's last line is literally- "Ha, what'd I tell you, there's never anything interesting here, right comrade." not a one of those endings is good or satisfying and just feels lazily pasted.

One of the common threads is that Kathryn appears alive in the literal last cutscene but in the past, writing the journal that started this whole journey…so many ways they could've set that up, so much there that I liked and was almost special just squandered in that last quarter, it didn't pay off. The way her death was handled actively ruined the game for me even if the story was already shaky from the start with the E99 bomb nonsense.

If Bioshock, Half-Life 2 and Portal had a baby. In some ways it seems like a formulaic cash in, but the story and setting (time travel in Russia) were unique and cool enough that I was really invested in it to the end. There are some neat puzzles, the gun play is satisfying, and the TMD device's powers are fun to mess around with. The early levels can be frustrating because of limited ammo and firepower, but soon you power up enough that it's no longer an issue. Overall a fun time and a game I'm really glad I played.

I guess this is where respawn got their time machine fetish for that section
First impressions: Bioshock with a less impressive intro but ACTUAL GOOD FEELING GAMEPLAY, and its not even outstanding, it just feels good in comparison to whatever irrational was trying to do with bioshock. and it somehow gets better i think the TN- i mean TMD is a great tool, quite the step up raven from the boring gore in quake 4 to the really cool looking dismemberment, and it gets better, the tmd melee blasting away all the limbs of enemies, makes me wish it didnt use any ammo for that, AND IT GETS BETTER:
Im gonna be honest i havent felt a dopamine rush like this in a videogame since i played max payne 1 and 3, but the seeker rifle, my fucking god... shoot, hold right click, and just see their limbs blast away, fuck.

My only hope at this point is that the pacing doesnt go to shit and that it doesnt do the old system bioshock thing of "oooo you have to go this way! oh no wait sorry the path has just been blocked you have to go the other way oh sorry you have to look for this thing to go that way, teehee!".

I will also not talk about how this really looks like generic military shooter late 2000s that's already been said and i have nothing to add

I'll probably finish this

edit: i didnt lol

Singularity is really interesting. I have trouble describing exactly what I like about it beyond the core idea of using time manipulation powers on people is neat, even if it's a bit underutilized. The emphasis on an almost horror-like tone is really unique among these high concept firth person shooters I've been playing. Gunplay feels nice, although I did end up sticking with the gatling gun the whole game after it was given to me, but I enjoyed all the options they had besides the pistol which felt really weak. The campaign felt like a good length although some set pieces go on a bit too long, or not long enough.

I appreciate the level design accommodating for exploration by hiding weapon upgrade currency, as well as secret permanent skills. There's a sense of growth to the player character without creeping into boring skill tree territory and I haven't seen that done yet with one of these kinds of games.

We take on the role of an American special forces soldier. The hero is sent on a mission to collect data on a mysterious, post-Soviet island. After an unfortunate landing, the protagonist discovers that the place is ruled by strange forces that can time travel back to the 1960s and further back. The player's goal is to solve the mystery behind a failed experiment that allegedly had a major impact on the course of the Cold War. The player also has to deal with enemies trying to gain control over the powerful properties of Element 99.

The first thing the player is given at the start of Singularity is the Time Manipulation Device. Using it, the player can change the age of objects and enemies. This incredible technology can restore a rusty bridge or a barrel to its former glory in just a second, or make an enemy suddenly age, for example. The Time Manipulation Device allows the player to solve many interesting puzzles and research information left written in many places. By making time go back in time, the player can for example listen to tapes or read damaged old documents.

Apart from that, the player comes across time portals many times during the mission. These take him back to the 1960s. Therefore, the player has to fulfill a task given in the past more than once in order to change the future and unlock more portals or find another solution. Many other technologies are also available on the island, such as Deadlock, which stops the passage of time near its user. The player also encounters strange-looking creatures and mutants in the game. These are created as a result of space-time anomalies and are often very dangerous. Some of them, called ghosts and phantoms, are echoes of past events and occasionally give the player certain clues. Singularity is developed by Unreal Engine 3. The game offers an average of 10 hours of gameplay.

A decent shooter in the vein of Half-Life, but without the improvements you would expect given the ten year difference between them. The main plot device had so much potential, yet they underutilize it - imagine if in Portal, all you ever had to do was use it to cross gaps.

Exploration is also non-existent, as you cannot leave the intended path - even jumps that look doable are blocked by invisible walls. Health, Ammo and Upgrade Materials are abundant, at least on Normal difficulty, so no big challenge.

I put this game off for years due to concerns about the horror elements, but those did not expand beyond one hand trying to grab you through a door, and one dead body as you turn around a corner (where the "be afraid!"-audio cue is scarier than the sight itself).

It took a little while to grow on me, but I ended up rather enjoying this game. It kinda doesn't know if it wants to be a kinda silly Sci-fi FPS or a horror-ish game, but that doesn't stop it from being a fun romp. I'll mention here that the game took me like 8 or 9 hours and I got every achievement on my first runthrough, sans the one for beating it on hard (or the multiplayer ones, which I assume are impossible to get now).

It starts out slow because it takes like an hour or two to get your super powers. That whole time, more or less, you're also stuck with a really annoying NPC who won't shut up his face. But after that bit, you get more fun guns and your super powers and the game gets a lot more enjoyable.

There are a couple other little annoying things about the presentation which aren't game breaking, but are very noticeable. On the 360 when you load in a new map (like when you start a new game), textures take a very noticeably long time to load in. This game came out 3 years after Bioshock (which it clearly took at least a little inspiration from), but it doesn't have audio logs you can pick up and listen to while you walk: You need to stand still on top of them to listen to them, not that they're ever necessary or that interesting as any in Bioshock though. NPC's also don't look at you while they tell you scripted events. You're uncommonly locked in place during cutscenes, so you can Gordan Freeman your way around a room while the NPC just stares at the air where you're supposed to be and talks to no one. Nothing game breaking or damaging, just little weird or ugly things that harm the overall presentation.

You need to look around maps for money (or at least what is effectively money) and med-packs and upgrade blueprints and the like, and while they're never hidden really cruelly or outlandishly, they can be quite out of sight sometimes. This is only a problem because the NPC's love shouting at you to hurry up when you can actually take as long as you damn well please in all but two parts of the game, and even then the checkpoints are fairly generous. There are even a couple easter eggs which there are achievements for finding spiced throughout the game which of course I HAD to find. One is very clearly a Metroid reference (Mother, my Brain Hurts!), and the other one I had to look up, but it's apparently a LOST reference (some kinda big wheel thingy). There's even a Borat reference in a note, which there's no achievement for finding (Great Success!).

The gunplay of course is very fun. It's very much like FEAR in that you can absolutely blow enemies apart with your guns. On normal mode, especially once you max out the damage on a gun (which ain't hard), human enemies literally fall to pieces in front of you. Or you can use your power-glove thingy to turn them to dust or morph them into monsters which attack their friends (or you, if they run out of friends). The pistol is absolute wank, but every other gun is great fun to use.

Verdict: Recommended. If you're looking for a fun, sci-fi shooter to pick up and romp through, this is a great choice! It ain't hard to find, and it's $5 or less, so it won't break the bank. It's not the best game ever made, but it didn't have to be to be fun.

Was going down memory lane and wound up stumbling upon this again. I hadn't played this since I was like 14 or 15, so I thought I'd pick it up for the fuck of it.

This game is very middle-of-the-road. There's nothing very spectacular about it, but that's perfectly fine. Not every game needs to be a masterpiece. That's what makes things like this more fun. I think the game knows it's just okay and it doesn't try to overstay its welcome. It's a very short single-player experience (around 5-6 hours) that tries to piggyback off of the "retrofuturism" trend of the 7th-gen console days with the likes of BioShock, Fallout and Metro. And you can definitely feel the influences of each of those games. What sets this apart though is the whole concept of the TMD. It's a little Half-Life-y in how it works, but I think it does enough to make for some interesting combat encounters. Enemy variation was fine. I don't think any of them really push you to utilize the TMD mechanics as much as you can tell the developers probably wanted you to, but they're fine nonetheless. There's a lot of ideas here that are pretty half-baked, but you can tell they actually TRIED to make something somewhat unique. I respect that. Like the Seeker, the Dethex, the whole shifting from present to past, which I'm sure inspired that one TF2 mission. The makings of a good game are there, just never fully realized. Really, the weakest aspect of this game outside of a few QoL elements (no subtitles or controller support? c'mon) lies in its narrative. You have no real stake in the story. They try to build it up around you like you're integral to everything, but it just doesn't quite hit the mark. It tries to pull a little BioShock/Fallout morality based thing near the end, but again, there are no emotional stakes. The story doesn't really lend itself enough for you to even care about the world and its inhabitants like that to point where a multiple choice desicion should be made. I've spent this entire game trying to stop the bad guy, but for some I'd reason team up with him in the end lmao? Not to mention, some of the time travelling logic doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but that's neither here nor there. Overall, despite my gripes, I had fun with it. I tend to enjoy "mid" games, so this scratched an itch.

Um Metro 2033 + Half-Life com uma pitada de Bioshock em alguns momentos.
Começa lento e entediante, após 1hr e 30 minutos o jogo engrena e não desacelera até o final, excelente FPS com gameplay e mecânicas muito bem inspiradas nos clássicos mencionados acima.
O game ainda conta com uma história sobre viagem no tempo muito bem construída, sem se perder nas várias idas e vindas no tempo, o que é um alivio pois é bastante comum os desenvolvedores perderem a mão em histórias cuja temática envolve viagem temporal.

Singularity was an experience that started off with me saying "This game again?"
I guess after years of playing single player FPS games, you start to see that almost each and every (good) one boils down to a few core elements. Your vehicle crashes, you're stranded on an isolated location with almost no weapons, you make your way through this unknown territory finding weapons and tools, at some point you're DEFINITELY tasked with finding a communications tower to send an S.O.S., you probably meet up with your comrades or some friendly new people at some point but they die after half a mission, etc. So yeah, I asked myself if I'm really gonna play this game again, and to my surprise, I did.
Because as it turns out Singularity had a great level & art design, some decent creepy atmosphere half the time, and satisfying weapon handling especially thanks to bullets that tear off limbs instead of grazing off enemies. I especially love shooter games that introduce sci-fi technologies and weird creatures as part of gameplay (see, Bioshock, Metro) so this was icing on the cake that was certainly a solid shooter.
Then the game delved deeper into the time mechanics and introduced some simplistic yet fun puzzles and combined it with the combat and well, that did it for me! I ended up loving it much more than I thought I would. It's certainly a solid shooter with fun gameplay and story.
My only complaint is the lack of accessibility that even makes the story hard to follow at some point. I mean, come on, English isn't even my first language and I have to endure it in Russian accent? Not cool, guys.

It starts off really well and ends up being a very 'meh' video game. Missions don't go beyond being "you have to do something, wait, I forgot something, and that something has to be obtained in such a place, wait, that something doesn't work without the other thing." It feels like you're doing the same thing over and over, as if it's artificially prolonging itself.

The mechanic of the "time hand" (can't remember the actual name) is the best part of the game, although it could have been explored more. Everything else is just "okay," the story is very predictable but keeps you interested, the gameplay is fine, the graphics... well... fine? I'll be honest, I don't know if it happened to anyone else, but most of the time the game took a while to load textures. There were moments where I walked in white hallways because nothing had loaded. I don't know if it also happens on PC, but it was terrible.

Anyway, it's a fun game. In the end, it made me want to try out the Bioshock series.