Pros:

A really neat adventure story!

Superior attention to detail in artistry! Rock solid first impression! Follows the lineage of other shooters but did not disappoint!

Unique effects and game play similar to Bioshock (1 and 2) or perhaps Gears of War (1 and 2).

May not be receiving the credit deserved...highly recommended for mature audiences/players!

#1 for the action shooter fan club! I play many shooters; I'm pretty sure I love this one just about as much as Bioshock.

Can purchase on Steam (more expensive?).

Cons:

Can't save at any location...must save at check points.

Sad story of fear and tragedy.

No futuristic undersea vehicles or advanced jetpacks (but not applicable).

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I had a lot of fun with this game. Many people compared it with Bioshock. While the color pallet and some of the graphics look similar in style, for me the game felt completely different in atmosphere. It's very difficult nowadays to find a first person shooter that's totally original because they are so well established. So Singularity does seem to borrow elements from past shooters, but it does have it's own feel and style as well.

The ambient sounds were creepy and had me constantly looking over my shoulder. Monsters were interesting and the phasing back and forth between the present and the past added some tense moments. There's nothing like walking into a room full of soldiers frozen in the 50's then finding them phasing into the present and opening fire on you to test your skill.

I also like the fact that there was minimal cussing in this game. I'm not a big fan of games that over use foul language. For me a lot of cursing adds nothing to a game.

I do not like the current trend of the auto save versus being able to save when you want in PC games, so that was a big negative for me. It seems that everyone is going that route now though. Another negative for me was that the game was too short, another recent trend. Just when I was really getting into it, I was done. I guess it does say something positive for a game when you are disappointed that it's over. It does have some interesting multiplayer to extend your play time though. Those two cons kept this from being a 5 star game for me.

Overall I had a great time with this game and was glad I bought it.

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I've got to give props to Raven for making such a great game! Singularity is a whole lot of fun and I had a blast playing it. From the moment you start the game and see the Raven logo being affected by a Singularity time wave, to seeing distortions occur while navigating the main menus, this game simply breathes awesomeness. The story is good and always keeps you engaged and wanting to find out what happens next, and the atmosphere and set pieces are fantastic! I also felt that the music was exceptionally well done and added so much more to the experience.

This is a game that never forgets it's a shooter. It always retains its focus and I never felt like I was doing a task for no reason. The weapons are solid and I especially liked the special purpose Seeker rifle, which lets you fire special E99 bullets you can guide around corners. It definitely added some extra flare to the game.

With that said, I do have a few (very) minor gripes and a couple of wishes....

You can't control the refresh rate from within the game. I had to use an external program to lock the refresh rate of my monitor while playing as it kept defaulting to a lower refresh rate. I wish Raven would have put just a little more effort into putting an option in the game to control this.

While the single-player mode is excellent, the multi-player mode does feel a little like an afterthought. It's still fun to play but there are only two game modes. It also lacks dedicated servers so you're forced to wait quite a while at times before being able to begin a match. It's too bad because dedicated servers could really help this game live on for years and years. I could even see some modders making some fantastic new game modes.

I wanted more boss fights! You only get to fight two actual boss enemies with a few other mini-bosses. There's a certain point in the game when you see how E99 has affected some plant life, with one of the mutations looking like a Venus flytrap. The specimen is small but I have to admit I kind of wanted to fight a giant "boss" version of the plant.

I also wish there was some kind of "super-crazy-hard" mode that tripled the amount of enemies and made you fight two bosses at the same time. My first play-through was on Normal difficulty, and while challenging enough for the first run, I found the Hard difficulty to actually be a little too easy for my second play-through. The only difference between normal and hard is that the enemies hit a little harder and take slightly more ammo to kill.

But other than that, this game is great! Raven made a rock-solid shooter that's a whole lot of fun to play and I definitely recommend it. My only hope is that Raven makes a sequel. Even after winning the game there are still unanswered questions, and I'd love to have more adventures with the Time Manipulation Device!

DRM (Digital Rights Management) INFO: This game uses SecuROM but only for a disc check. There are no online activation requirements.

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I purchased this game through 'Steam'; the download took about 18 hours. The following is a brief, early impression.

"Singularity" is a video game that is a FPS that not only uses traditional guns (pistol, automatic machine gun, sniper rifles, shot guns etc.) but also features a new item that has several uses, one of which will allow the user to manipulate time.

The Story:

The old Soviet Union, in their ongoing paranoia and their quest to beat the west, has come across a new element that seems to hold the potential to give them the edge in the arms race. However, experimentation went wrong and instead of breakthrough advances in arms technology, the fast, reckless development (pushed ahead by Moscow) caused an apocalyptic event...resulting in a wasteland being created on the island where research was taking place.

Your job is to go back in time, using this new and marvelous equipment and prevent the devastation from occurring.

The game...the positive

Fabulous graphics struck me right from the start...the audio was also well done.

The atmosphere reminded me of 'S.T.A.L.K.E.R Shadow of Chernobyl'...the time warp features had flashes of 'Timeshift' coming to mind...and some weaponry was a little reminiscent of 'Half Life'

There is a multiplayer and the ability to use a 'friend(s)' option...haven't tried these yet.

To add to the regular features of the weapons there are an assortment of rare upgrades available...giving you choices between such things as bigger clips, faster reloads and more damage and some interesting additions to the 'special' weapons that you'll encounter throughout the game.

The negatives: (minor to more important)

1.)The game, not surprisingly, appears very linear.

2.)Up to this time, no manual was found either on the game-site or on Steam

3.)Your only able to equip (carry) two REGULAR weapons at a time.

4.)There does not appear to be any player generated game saves. Only checkpoint saves AND more importantly, there doesn't appear to be any choice of which as to which checkpoint game-save you can load...it is only the very last checkpoint you went through. And the implications are this...

a.) there is no going back and restarting a previous level other that the one your on (unless you restart a new game).

b.) if you've made a poor choice of upgrades to a weapon OR just want to experiment with a different upgrade, your stuck with it once you've reached the next checkpoint.

c.) some doors MAY lock behind you...so make sure you explore an area fully before you go through, because you'll never be able to assess that area again once a new checkpoint is reached.

Conclusion:

So far an interesting FPS which uses time manipulation as a way to accomplish the game objective. It has great graphics that flowed smoothly with my machine (P5K mother board and nVidia GT8800 video card). The ability to save anywhere with F5 or at least have a choice of reload from any previous game-save checkpoint would have been really nice...thus the loss of 1/2 Star... Overall 4 1/2 Stars.

Ray Nicholson (cujo)

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