With more games coming out each year, the competition also gets tougher in terms of a strong plot, game play, visuals, FPS, etc., Singularity developed by Raven Software and available on the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3, is one such game that is unique enough to be noticed and a great entertaining game that deserves to be played .In the game, you assume the role of Nate Renko, a soldier who is sent to the Russian island Katorga-12 to investigate the radiation emitting from it. A freak accident finds you stranded on the island and as you explore it, you discover that back in 1955 the Russians had discovered a new element — Element-99 (E-99), with which they conducted some crazy experiments and manipulated time itself using a Time Manipulation Device or TMD with which the island constantly shifts between the time period of 1955 and 2010. After you accidentally travel to the past and change the world as we know it, it is up to you to set things right again by using the TMD, travelling between 1955 and 2010 and undoing what you did.
The TMD, as you might have guessed it, is what makes Singularity unique because it allows you to manipulate time around objects and enemies. You can speed up the aging process of an object thus making it crumpled and ruined or you can rewind the aging process and make an object new again. Similarly, you can use the TMD on enemies; however, the TMD has a different effect on different enemy. For example, human enemies will age and turn to bones and die or turn into mutants and attack other enemies, while mutant enemies will either slow down or phase in, that is become visible for you to shoot them easily; and killer bugs will start attacking each other if you use the TMD on them, etc. The game also throws in a few puzzles in the mix that require you to use the TMD to solve them which mixes the pace of the game quite well and offers you quite a lot of variety as the game progresses.
Like other FPS games you have a conventional arsenal of weapons at your disposal too; such as a shotgun, an assault rifle, a minigun, a rocket launcher and more. But the weapons most fun to use are the Seeker Rifle and the Grenade Launcher, because you can control and steer the bullets of the Seeker Rifle as well as the grenades of the Grenade Launcher into enemies, which allows you to be creative when using these two weapons since you can steer the ammo into exploding barrels or freezing cylinders enemies might be standing near and take them out with one shot.
In the course of the game, you can also upgrade your weapons, TMD or buy character upgrades. Weapons are upgraded using Weapons Tech that you find scattered across Katorga-12 and include increased accuracy, larger clip size and smaller reload times that make weapons more efficient and deadly, while the TMD is upgraded using E-99 while character upgrades include increased stamina, health regeneration and more.
Singularity isn't revolutionary but that doesn't hurt this game one bit. This is still an awesome game because of the uniqueness that time manipulation offers. So if you are looking for an action game that emphasises more on the action and less on the story/plot, stop looking and play this game.
— Sohail Saleem
