July 24th, 2009

Singular looks like Wolfenstein

‘Activision’ has decided to postpone the release of “Singularity” until the first quarter of 2010, because, as it was declared, it needed to be separated from the competition revealed by the holiday marketplace. This decision is mainly seen as the Activision’s desire to lay a distance between Singularity and Wolfenstein, so long as they are so similar one to another, well at least they look like being the same from far distance, but if you play them you’ll figure out the difference.

Singularity is an FPS featuring time maneuvering where the alteration of game’s time has an influence upon the state of singular objects. Targeting some objectives may lead to their destruction and once their ruins being found you are able to restore them. The mechanic of the aging and restoration is constructed in such a way that it generates some attractive puzzles. Everything that is destroyed seems to work in your favor, creating paths for you to continue your way along the game. But it is not something that you can pass through at your own will; the puzzles that are displayed apparently lead to a single solution.

/>To manipulate the time there are other features incorporated such as targeting at human foes and make them to age transforming them in horrific ghouls. The purpose of this feature is not quite that clear, but there are some other utilities presented with the restoration and aging feature, for instance finding a destroyed box that once restored it reveals ammo and useful items inside.

The island where you play is loaded of messy leftovers from the Russians strange experiments performed by them in the 50s. And the fact is that you are able to view into the past to spot items that belong to the past and drag them into the present. The fun part happens with the explosive barrels that are pulled from the past amidst a firefight in the purpose to be chucked at your foes; you can catch and reverse projectiles using them like rockets, and with adequate timing you can boomerang an RPG out of the air.

Beside all these powers you are offered a feature described as a telekinetic thrust that doesn’t damage too much but it reveals itself to be a useful tool to fight against your devilish enemies. Some of those creepy corpses can slide between a state of tangibility and the one of ethereality. While they are tangible, you can shoot them into pieces, but being ghostly, you are quite restricted in that you can’t do pretty much of anything.

The controls of the game are not sensitive at all, and the demo presented, failed to teach players how to use the field of skills, but this is mainly because of the demo’s poor construction and not a problem of the game itself. “Singularity” looks like “Wolfenstein”, but while playing it offers a totally different experience and a good one indeed.