If you like your video games to deliver a few scares with your shoot-‘em-up action, then Singularity ticks all of the right boxes. Best described as a cross between Bioshock and Half Life, Singularity is a first-person shooter set on a long-forgotten deserted island – an island that was previously the home of top secret Russian experiments conducted during the cold war. Of course. These experiments revolved around the discovery of a time manipulation which granted incredible powers to the person who used it. However, because of an accident that killed hundreds of scientists and populated the island with mutants, the Russians abandoned the experiments and it is only now that the Americans chanced upon it. Sending a team of crack army commandos (or something) to investigate, you play the role of one of these army types who is tasked with finding out the secrets that the long-forgotten island holds. Basically this involves wandering around the place and shooting as many mutants as you can find.
These mutants come in all shapes and sizes, and will leap out at you from the shadows, scaring you half to death until you manage to kill them with your limited ammo supply. Oh how I hate that ‘No Ammo’ warning that flashes on screen.
As you travel around the island, you will also encounter Soviet soldiers who have come to reclaim the time travel technology for themselves. Not as scary maybe, but they can do just as much damage to your health.
When you find the time travel device itself, you get the chance to change between playing in the modern time and back in the 1950s when the island was operational. A nice touch and it is a decent story arch that keeps interest in the game high. The device can also be used to age or restore items such as crates and different power units throughout the game, which add a touch of puzzle solving to the combat side of things.
Graphically at times it reminded me of the last Wolfsenstein game – funnily enough a title that came to us from the same developers behind Singularity. The sound and voice acting, is full of some incredibly clichéd Russian accents and usual explosions, so not much new there, but it does the job well enough.
This really is a well thought-out game and is both challenging and playable at the same time. Sure, it’s not high up on the originality scale, but when a game is this much fun, who cares that you have seen it all before? Just turn your brain off and just enjoy it for what it is.
