I don't know guys. I enjoyed the hell out of this one, but now that I've finished it, I just don't know how to feel about it. Usually when I finish a game, if it's good, I'm bummed because it's over like I am when I finish a book. But here lately I've been remarkably underwhelmed with these games. I don't know if it's because I'm finishing them so damn fast or what but...I dunno. Lemme collect my thoughts and hash this out.
I'm having a real hard time thinking right now, so I'll start with a short plot description: You are Captain Renko. No, I don't know what branch of the military made you a captain, just roll with it. Typical silent protagonist, I don't think we ever see his face or really care for that matter. You and your team (read: guys to be killed before the tutorial mission is over) are sent to an isolated island off the coast of Russia. Apparently the commies were fiddling around with some things that they shouldn't have been and now the island's leaking enough radiation to kill an orbiting satellite. Damn. How'd they keep the island a secret? With that kind of radiation reading shouldn't it glow in the fucking dark?
Anyway, one predictable helicopter crash later, you're stranded, weaponless. Yeah, they sent a strike team in to investigate this island with no weapons. Maybe you lost them when the chopper went boom, but shouldn't Renko have at least a side arm? Don't they strap holsters on anymore? You start wandering around, reading notes, listening to audio logs and wondering why you can interact with 55 year old typewriters and why the phones still have a dial tone after that long. Hmm...This is starting to sound like Dead Space in first person. Not that that would be a bad thing, that game kicked ass.
They start up the what-the-fuck-o-meter when you walk into a destroyed room and get hit by a time bubble or whatever and poof! You're whisked away to 1955. You are soon hit by a car after pushing your peeping tom dad out of the street...wait no...That was something way cooler. Instead of re-living BttF like we all wanted to, you find yourself in a burning building and you end up saving a guy's life. Hilarity ensues when you return to 2010 and discover Oh Noes! The guy you saved has become a horrible dictator and taken over the world!
Yeah, it's pretty predictable after that: you run about, taking orders from characters you don't know anything about trying to fix what you did to the timeline. Ok, so the plot isn't the greatest, yet I kept playing it, and I'll probably crank the difficulty up to extreme next time I boot it up. Why? I hear some of you asking. Because, childrens, the plot really didn't matter. Yes, this is coming from a guy who purchases games by considering if the story being told is any good or not.
Honestly, the thing that kept me playing was...Well I don't know. The weapons were good, but standard for an FPS. Where this game shines through is the TMD, Time Manipulation Device. It allows you to shift items and sometimes bits of the scenery back and forth 55 years. So, for instance, if you come upon a staircase that's crumbled to rusty bits and chunks of twisted metal and you need to get up it and you haven't had your tetanus shot lately, use the TMD and it will shift it back 55 years to when it was whole. Spiffy. Actually, it is fairly awesome to see staircases and walkways and fuseboxes flying back together. You can also use it on your enemies and age Russian soldiers into mummies.
Taken as a whole, Singularity is OK. Just OK. The standard time manipulation FPS plot and untrustable side characters was made up for by the awesome factor of the TMD. There is also a fair amount of replayability, with tons of upgrades for you and your TMD, as well as 3 endings and I think four difficulty levels. Not a great game, but it's one I will definitely be playing again soon.
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