Singularity PS3 review

Yes I managed to get my hands on a copy below the ridiculous RRP.

A quick flick through the manual and wow that's pretty bare - here are the screens, here are the controls, multiplayer consists of two types of matches here's the recommended speeds. All in all it's about 10 pages with half of that being the copyright and technical filler.

Now I could say this is to avoid spoilers, except at the very beginning of the game you're shown a video that gives away a huge chunk of the story. During the 1950's Russia discovered a new element/mineral (the game can't make up its mind which) called E99 (which would now be called Einsteinium) this promised to produce power and weaponry that would eclipse the USA's atomic stance. The location site is an island off the west coast of Russia and a research station is placed there called Katorga 12. Then all goes quiet. Back to 2010 and an overflying satellite gets blinded by a radiation burst, worried that the Russians are covering up another Chernobyl the USA sends in two 2-man squads to investigate. The game starts with the player in one of the helicopters when something bad happens and you're stranded near-weaponless on the island.

At this point it's a standard FPS, for the first part you're only armed with a knife and it's vaguely creepy moving through the decaying remains of the island's entrance point especially with some of the odd things that are going on. Keeping your eyes open you can spot notes and other points of interest included audio recorders a al Bioshock that give you a picture of events on the island and eventually you'll find some other weapons just in time to fend off the creatures who appear to be the original island's workers mutated by some explosive accident. Carrying on you make contact with someone and are guided to the TMD, the Time Manipulation Device that is the game's key feature and is welded to your left wrist.

You don't get it in finished state though, and extra features get added at special stations set along your path that conveniently provide you with just the right power to progress. At first you can simply revert or age certain things, so you can repair a smashed ammo crate to gain its contents or age a padlock so it rusts and falls off, you also gain an Impulse ability which sends out a shockwave and there's the first problem I had with the game mechanic.

The Impulse ability replaces the knife attack, fine it's more powerful etc. but using it requires energy. You have a finite amount of energy that either slowly replenishes over time or can be topped up with cells. If you're low on energy and hit Impulse you'll automatically top up your load with a cell and that takes time at which point the action generally becomes moot or annoying if you were just blasting some boards out the way. This is made worse in that you can't manually 're-load' your energy and can carry only a finite amount of extra charges. So find yourself low on energy and with a full load and find a pick-up and you'll just use an Impulse blast to force a top-up so as to pick up the cell or just stand in front of a boarded up area waiting for the bar to fill by itself.

Why would you want to waste this? Well that presents the second problem with the game. The game is linear and load-screens only appear at major change points so to accommodate this the game periodically blocks your return to previous areas, most commonly the door locks behind you. As you never return to these areas any pick-ups left are instantly wasted. As these blockages can often occur with little warning a slight paranoia ensued and I would regularly scour the area for anything I might have missed and it became more a scavenger hunt than a game of survival.

This wouldn't be too much of a concern if the pick-ups weren't so valuable, but at certain points you're presented with 'stations' that can boost the ability of your weapons, your TMD or even your own stats. The weapon stations require weapon tech pick-ups, the TMD stations E99 canisters and for that what you're offered depends on the blueprints you've managed to find. So E99 collection becomes very important and this brings me to yet another concern I have with the game. Anything left 'loose' in the game appears to be fixed - notes, blueprints, the odd med-pack, TMD cell or E99 cannister. Likewise crates are also fixed points, however the contents of the crates aren't. Open a crate and gain a +100 E99 cannister; die and respawn at the checkpoint, open the crate again and you might get the same thing or you'll find a stimshot, or a med-pack, or a +10 E99, or a +200 E99 - it's a gamble. In some way I like it, in others I don't. Get lucky and you'll have a stash of E99 to purchase upgrades, unlucky and you'll be passing by stimshots and medpacks that you don't have room for and can't return for and that can mean the difference between life and death because these upgrades are important.

You're only allowed to carry two weapons at a time, and occasionally a 'special' weapon which you'll ditch once it's used up. The weapon lockers allow you to switch weapons, buy ammo (using E99) and use the weapon tech to upgrade the clip capacity, reload speed, or damage; twice for each normal weapon. Trouble is they're rare so once you've upgraded a weapon there's a desire to hang on to it even if you could pick up a 'better' weapon more suited for the task ahead. For example I'd upgraded the shotgun to the max and was stuck on a balcony shooting at middle-to-far distance targets, my best bet was to keep the autocannon I was also holding and switch the shotgun to the sniper rifle I'd found. Instead I'd drop the autocannon and pick up the sniper rifle then switch back provided the autocannon hadn't disappeared, because yes they can do that sometimes.

This rarity also makes itself present with the TMD stations called augmenters and this is where the real annoyance lies. Benefits are split between three types all of which cost you E99 - Hero Perks that affect you immediately, such as better health, longer sprinting etc. TMD perks that improve your Impulse or Deadlock (more on that later) abilities and slotted TMD abilities. It's the latter type that proves problematic. The abilities need to be equipped and at first you only get one slot, later if you find the blueprint you can buy another slot and equip a second ability. However not only are you restricted to purchasing these abilities at the augmenter,, but this is also the only place you can equip them. Now in-game I'll accept that makes sense, but the requirement to choose which abilities to equip for the foreseeable future given the rare nature of the augmenters is painful out-game. Get it wrong and you'll pay the cost and that can be a high one.

See you can't save the game, it autosaves at every checkpoint. So combine in the rarity of the stations and the tendency to block your return to said stations; and the decision over which abilities to equip and which weapons to carry makes a big difference which can be impossible to recover from should you make a mistake.

But what about the gameplay itself how does the TMD affect that? To an extent badly. The ageing or reverting of objects is fine, when it comes to other abilities it becomes a little problematic control-wise. L2 fires the TMD device if something appears under the crosshairs for it to do, if there isn't you just switch to the device. First problem is that you can't just switch back to a weapon. Use R1 and you'll switch back and fire it, use Square and you'll switch back and try to reload it (if possible), use Triangle and you'll switch to it and then switch it for your other weapon. so I ended up using L1 that switches to the zoom/ironsights mode. This meant that for a moment my viewpoint would zoom in, but it was a better price to pay than wasting ammunition or watching the reload weapon sequence.

This problem shows up more so with the extra ability of the TMD - the Deadlock - hold down R3 and you'll create a bubble of energy in your hand, fire it using R1 and it'll fly out and expand creating a stasis field locking down everything in it and anything entering it. Buying the extended size and duration made this the default option for me and it was tempting to just walk around with a bubble ready to fire. Except do that and you can't switch to a weapon without firing the bubble off and that costs you energy. See it costs no energy to create a bubble only when it's fired, if it was the other way around I wouldn't have been tempted to create one so often.

The energy usage also plays a part in the problem with the TMD when it comes to using it on enemies, as I've already mentioned try to Impulse without enough energy and you waste time topping-it up, but this can also occur when altering enemies. A simple tap of L2 will turn a soldier to dust, but a double-tap will turn them into a mutant that will turn on its former comrades and provide a pleasant distraction. This too is the wrong way around. Double-tap L2 and sometimes it just won't register because the cross-hairs have strayed, or between the two taps you need to top-up your energy and in each case it becomes moot as the soldier is now dust.

It's also silly little things, you don't know how much ammunition you're holding in your weapon unless you fire it, try to reload it or switch to it, the counter disappears, as does your heath and energy counter until it's impacted. The sniper rifle gives you a short time-slowdown ability when zoomed in, but doesn't indicate how long you have to use it or when it's ready again. Likewise you can sprint, but you don't know how long for.

The gameplay itself seems a little imbalanced, the player gains more abilities, but the enemies faced don't change. There are four standard mutant types and four soldier types with the odd special you'll never see again and that's it throughout the game. You don't encounter more of them or tougher versions of them, just the same ones and while there's some pleasure that can be derived from pulping the same creatures that caused so much hassle to you at the start of the game the challenge fades, especially so near the end of the game when.... well that would be a spoiler.

There's also some odd decisions that have been made the rail monster in particular, it seems impossible to get through unharmed, but who cares as it's an end sequence and after the load you'll be back to full health - it just seems a trick to make the player waster health packs, which in itself is pointless as you'll be dropped straight into a section that can provide you with six without barely moving. Then the monster itself which despite telegraphing it's attacks can still knock 99% of your health off if you happen to just be within its area of effect, get though that with health at a sliver, medpacks exhausted and be faced with some enemies that come out of nowhere are fast, small and explode when close enough. Lucky that the checkpoint is there I wonder how many testers had to die before that happened though.

Also the 'important' points where time slows down for you to perform some action, fine if you've got the right item equipped otherwise it's back to the checkpoint you go.

Oh and did anyone like dropping into that phase tick nest?

Graphically it's fine, it uses the Unreal engine so nothing stunning. There's the odd judder and screen-tear, the odd pop-in of textures, but nothing overtly problematic and nothing that offends the eye. Ignoring enemy placement and the mandatory blockages the level design is good and pleasing to the eye I'd say a lot of work has gone into making this place look like it was once a functioning site and it's paid off.

Multiplayer - untested as yet, reports suggest problems some possibly due to the peer-to-peer setup and lack of manual matchmaking abilities.

All in all this is a good game, it is fun to scramble about for stuff, the TMD does make things more interesting and it's got a delightful choice of endings depending on your final actions - it's just that at times it can be very, very frustrating. Once again I just get the impression that this didn't go beyond a certain degree of testing I've already alerted others to a game-breaking moment on Gamespot that occurs near the very beginning that simply shouldn't have got past the testers.

Verdict - wait a bit and buy it cheap, the changes that can be made to your character, and weapons as well as the hidden items make it replayable.