Singularity – In Mother Russia, Time Clocks You [Review]

Welcome to Singularity, a game with serious time shenanigans, horrible mutants with a taste for human flesh, and masses of Soviet soldiers out to kill you—both futuristic and classic brown-shirted ones from the past. The plot isn’t overly complicated, but it’s a bit of a mess when you start to think about it, especially if you are sensitive to media tackling time travel. However, being a Call of Duty style shooter, you don’t actually have to give that much of thought, since you are here to blast things to kingdom come—regardless of which timeline the enemy belongs to.

Katorga‑12
It starts with you being sent to a secret Russian island named Katorga‑12, since strange reports have been coming from there. And as these things go, you and your team of American black ops soldiers fall out of the sky and crash-land on the mysterious island. Helicopters are not what they used to be, let me tell you. It becomes clear something unethically weird has been going on here in the name of science. The game kinda hits you over the head with the exposition, repeatedly—making it really hard to miss. Unless you are a real dumdum, of course.

It’s actually one of the issues with Singularity—how they go out of their way to make you understand, but in doing so, manage to reveal the whole of the plot within the first few chapters. At least for those of us who can puzzle things together. But yeah, not to spoil too much, time shenanigans are involved, which will take you to the glory days of the past Soviet Union on the island, and to the more destructive sci-fi future of it.

The plot by itself is pretty fun and feels very “pulpy”, with the classic mistrust of two nations of past Iron Curtain paranoia suddenly at each other’s throats again. The sci-fi aspect makes this stronger, as it comes off like a world that never truly got out of that scare. One specific aspect I enjoyed about the plot is the mysterious highly powerful new element called E-99 found on Katorga‑12. Now, you get to know about this element as soon as you land on the island, but what it does is a bit of a mystery. You know it contains loads of energy, and that it lets you manipulate time with it—but the third, more intriguing part of it is how the material warps everything biological around it to something grotesque. Something you witness fairly early as shambling emaciated corpses roam the seemingly abandoned city. 

This part has a more subtle effect too, as everything biological means vegetation as well. In the beginning, you will notice small plants that look out of place in the world, and the further you come inland, the more corruption can be seen. It’s a damn nice touch that sure gives the place an eerie atmosphere, as it’s a gradual thing. This is not an element you want to mess with willy-nilly—which that mad Soviet scientist did, of course.

Friends in places
On this island of freaks and misfits you are not alone, as you soon find help to restore the timeline. These dudes are okay and are important to the plot, but how their movement through the world is handled is questionable at best. It actually becomes funny too, because it’s so nonsensical. You see, these folk need things to be done and so will send you into very dangerous locations, like sewers filled with horrible monsters. You know, places you don’t want to go alone without a bazooka or two. The dumb part of this, when you climb out of the sewer, limping on one leg, covered in monster guts, and with no ammo—you soon discover that these assholes are already here ahead of you and in pristine condition. It happens a lot and makes no sense at all—how did you get here, old man?! Magical NPCs that bypass danger, a classic for sure, but it destroys the believability a tad.

Shoot everything, comrade
The shooting is competently made and can be best likened to Call of Duty, of all games. To be fair, the fate of the developer, Raven Software, is to be a CoD factory, pumping out games almost yearly. But Singularity was made before this, so it’s more like the DNA of Singularity got passed to the Call of Duty franchise. Regardless, its gameplay style is linked, as the shooting feels arcadey with very little physicality in how the weapons work. The blasting of monsters and humans alike does feel more chunky than CoD though, as you will be severing arms, legs, and heads with your bullets, leaving smoldering gibs in your wake. Sadly, it’s also limited by scripting here too, as the physics comes off as fake, like a canned animation—even when sending Soviets ten meters with an explosive. Half-Life 2, this is not, despite going for that sense of single-player experience, considering the TMD device.

TMD device you say? Well, you didn’t think you would only be shooting in a game with time shenanigans. You also get a device clamped to your forearm that lets you manipulate time, in the sense of making items younger or older—or why not just age a poor grunt a hundred-years, to see him wither and die in five seconds. Gruesome and cool. This gadget is used for puzzles, like de-aging a rusty fallen bridge so you can cross, or picking up boxes to make an improvised set of stairs—very Half-Life.

Together, these two gameplay aspects make for a damn entertaining experience, even if the shooting can feel a bit light. It has Quake-like dancing around melee monsters to dodging between cover not to be hosed down with deadly AK-47 bullets. It’s chaotic, and sometimes it becomes double chaotic when these two worlds meet—as you will have Soviets fighting you, while being besieged by angry blue mutants from hell. Fun for everyone!

Visual feast
Singularity looks and runs great, but being a sixteen-year-old game, the textures will look muddy when viewed close up. But the smoothness, and the visual style make up for all that, as the Soviet-style bases look awesome, especially later on when the alien fauna creeps in to give it an eerie vibe. Voice, sound, and music are also fantastic, with the combat tunes definitely being the stand-out here. The presentation is AAA gaming when everything comes together—well, almost.

Conclusion
I will give Singularity a strong four. I was ready to give it higher, but seeing how the plot plays out takes it down a notch. The background lore is excellent, though, and makes for excellent atmosphere throughout. The shooting is good, but it does feel a bit floaty after a while, since it leans toward arcade, with fake physics. Overall, though, Singularity is a damn fun game that does not overstay its welcome. It’s just one of those one-off games that feels good to play, that doesn’t require you to read fifteen lore books to understand all the intricacies. Highly recommended!

Thanks for reading.

– Thomas