I had somewhat of an interest in it when it came out, but I never picked it up, especially considering at the time, I didn't have a job, so the games I would get I'd have to choose wisely, nor did I want to ask my brother to get it, despite him perhaps enjoying it himself. I still haven't played it. I'm at a point where I don't really have much to play as I played what I wanted that was new this year so far, and I'm just waiting for Deus Ex. I plan on getting this game really soon here on the 360 (I don't want to take the chance and get it on my PC). I'm just wondering what you guys thought of it, and perhaps, now that it's been six years since its release. Specifically, what did you think about these bullet point aspects?

• Story
• Sound
• Gameplay
• Atmosphere

Alright, thanks.

Think Half-Life+Bioshock knockoff. Perfectly serviceable but not inspiring in anyway. If you go in with low expectations it might surprise you and if you have any expectations it won't meet any of them.

Story: C - Didn't find it that engaging. Been there, done that time-travel stuff. Maybe if you're into the Soviets you might get a little more out of it.

Sound: C+ - Fine but can't think of anything note worthy.

Gameplay: B - I remember it being fun.

Atmosphere: C+ - It's good but you can tell it didn't have triple A budget.

It lacks originality and the execution doesn't make up for the difference.

I actually really like this game. It's a bit of an underrated gem in my book.

Look, the game is basically Bioshock, but less good. The story is nice if you enjoy time traveling shenanigans, the weaponry and powers are fun and satisfying to use (as they should be, it is a Raven game...), and there are one or two pretty memorable setpieces.

Eh, I liked it enough to play through it twice.

Yeah, I read it was like Bioshock, which interests me greatly, and I suppose Half Life 2 as well. I bought it, and it's at about 25 percent now.

@liquiddragon: Let's take a recent time travel story in a game. I'm not sure if you played it, but if you did, how does it stack up to Quantum Break's?

If this game were a drink it would be a lukewarm, generic-brand cola.

I remember really liking this game.

Maybe it's just because its soviet stuff, but to me it looks a bit like Metro.

@ntm: sorry, haven't played it. I think Remedy has relatively strong writing so I can't imagine it would stack up to it.

I really liked it don't give a shit about graphics or any of that other stuff but the story was fun and the time powers were cool.

It's been a while since I played it so I can't give specifics but I remember really loving it, especially the scientist's "good" ending.

Okay, this is legit freaky. I bought this days ago, but started playing it today (July 21). What. The. Hell.

Anyway, I'm about two hours in and I'm really liking it. "Generic, lukewarm cola" is not the allegory I'd use. So far it has a pretty creepy subplot going on describing the research the soviets were performing on the unwitting civilians of the island. There's a particularly dark scene in a classroom, if that gives you an idea.

I suppose this might be an example of the game doing a lot of what I appreciate and thus I ignore some of the things people say are downsides, but like... It has good atmosphere (B, not C+ I'd say). Sound is good, but lacks subtitles, which bugs me; both Nolan North and Steven Blum make appearances. Gameplay feels like a combo of standard shooter and horror-shooter, it works, y'know. Shotgun feels good.

Story: haven't played enough, won't grade, but it is legit creep.

Sound: no subs, but good voice acting and environmental sounds. B-

Gameplay: Solid. 'Nuff said? B+

Atmosphere: Creepy and effective. Should mention I'm kind of a kitten with horror and even just horror-ish games. B.

@beachthunder said:

I'd say Singularity is more like a Mr. Pibb that hasn't been in the fridge, but it's been in the cool part of the cellar recently.

It's the best shooter of the last generation as far as I'm concerned. The story is actually brilliant and the gameplay is fun even if it does get a little easy by the end. It looks old and if I can recall has some pop in issues (it's an Unreal Engine 3 game I think), but whatever.

@poobumbutt: That sucks that there are no subtitles. I always turn those on. Oh well, it's not game breaking, but that's unfortunate. It doesn't really have to do with sound though, at least not what I was talking about, but thanks for mentioning it anyways.

For what it's worth, I remember the shooting being pretty average, there's a serviceable but completely standard upgrade system, like half the guns are terrible garbage so don't ever upgrade them. The time powers are fun. Honestly I remember the story being pretty much the best part, in that it's a real good b-tier time travel story. I kinda like the atmosphere and style of the game, but the present day yo-the-island-is-fucked-up thing where everything is red and twisted metal everywhere got kinda monotonous, and the sections in the past at least looked cooler.

Make sure you see all three endings! They're fun, in that I think the game's plot makes all kinds of logical leaps at various points but it's time travel so who cares. It's about as consistent with "wait, what is the true version of events that actually happened?" as BioShock Infinite turned out to be.

@ntm: The second best mid-tier game ever made, behind Binary Domain. It doesn't make any sense, its repeatitive but I enjoyed it all the same.

EDIT: If you are playing on PC then use a mouse with sensitivity switching and when you use the crazy sniper bullets crank that thing up because you can control where the bullets go. It's great. Imagine this but you can turn around corners with ease - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJVfKfuJeYY.

Ah I found the video

It doesn't do anything new, but it does pretty much everything well. Anyone who like FPS games should give it a go IMO. Fun game.

I think it's a better BioShock 2 than the actual BioShock 2. It takes you to an interesting location that is both familiar but very alien, has some moments in the campaign that are among the most inventive of the last generation, and the guns all feel great.

It takes a bit to get going, but after that first 30, 45 minutes? Holy shit.

This game should have gotten a lot more attention than it did. I imagine the multiplayer didn't do it any favors.

Its pretty neat, I think it has been a tad overrated in the last few years, but its a solid experience.

If there were lots of Bioshock clones out there, it would probably be a pretty middling, by-the-numbers one of those. Since there aren't a whole lot of those games it still stands out as fairly original, but I don't think it's particularly successful at anything it sets out to do. The Soviet setting isn't particularly well-realized, and the time mechanics aren't particularly interesting when compared to something like Timeshift which came out a few years prior. Out of Raven's more recent output, I think Wolfenstein 2009 is vastly superior.

It's not bad by any means, but every aspect of the game has been done better by other games, even at the time of its release. It's usually pretty cheap though, and if you want to scratch the Bioshock itch, I'd recommend giving it a try, just keep your expectations in check.

If gaping loop holes in story don't bother you it's fairly decent, or was, don't know how it will hold up today.

I played a few hours of it last night. I think it's decent so far. I'm enjoying it. Probably won't end up being one of my favorite 2010 games, but whatever.

Yeah its a good mid-tier BioShock and might be worth a playthrough.

Not sure how far in I am, but just as an update, not that anyone really cares, which is fine, but I thought I'd say how I thought about it. I am pretty bored with it. The only reason I would want to finish it now is because if I didn't, I'd feel like I wasted money. Not that it's void of some good qualities, but overall, I'm just hoping it's almost over. It's not nearly as good as Bioshock or Half Life, which the game feels most like. To me, it feels less like Half Life 2, and more like the first Half Life honestly. I don't care for the characters; it doesn't really give a reason to, and the story doesn't really seem to go anywhere. It's really just 'go here, get this and/to do that, oh, and sometimes time changes'. Though the story of the setting can draw some comparisons to Bioshock, like how things have gone wrong, and that it's a secret place, it is kind of dull looking. The shooting is fine. I don't think the guns feel that good, but it's not bad. The animations of human enemies is pretty good when they go down: the reactions that is, and it's brutal when you use some powerful weapons, akin to Raven's other games. The visuals are not good though, even by last-gen standards. It's kind of underwhelming to be honest, like it tarnishes the entire experience to some degree. The sound is alright. The music is somewhat generic, but I think it's the best part of the sound. The voice work is okay. The environmental sounds aren't special, and gun sounds aren't either. The objective in the game is really all that's there, which is as I said, go here, and do that by shooting dudes, and doing some puzzles; pulling switches, but there's not much incentive. I kind of just want to play something else now.

@ntm: I played the PC version pretty recently. While it wasn't that great visually it definitely was way better than the 360 version was. I recalled thinking the 360 version was okay when I played it around release. Playing the PC version earlier this year actually gave me a new appreciation for it. 60 fps gameplay really changes the feel of a shooter in a way it does for only a few other genres. Plus using driver level enhancements and/or SweetFX you can get the game looking at least decent. I used DSR to downscale the game from a 2k internal resolution which resolved most of the aliasing and pixel shimmering. You can also use either SweetFX or your graphic's cards control panel to add ambient occlusion and other post-process effects which can make the game look fine. Plus that 60 hz refresh makes a huge difference in the feel of the gunplay, taking it from decent to pretty good. The game is never as good as Bioshock or Half Life 2 but I found that at least on PC I ended up enjoying a second playthrough.

@raven10: Yeah, if my PC could handle it, and some enhancements that comes with the PC version, I would have played that version. At the price it's at though, I didn't really want to take the chance. The game by design though just isn't that great to me, so it being prettier wouldn't necessarily make it something that I enjoy. As it stands, the 360 version is a near steady 30 throughout it feels, so that's alright. I'll take your word for it that the PC version is better, and glad you enjoyed it more, but I'll (probably) never play it.

It's good! Like, the epitome of "good." Worth playing imo.

It's pretty good. I remember appreciating it because it does something with time mechanics that isn't bullet time and does make sense. This was a long time ag and I don't have my 360 copy anymore, but I would play it again if I had it.

@justin258: Doesn't the majority of the time mechanics boil down to fixing broken crates or repairing staircases? I don't know if I can think of a more inane application of time manipulation...

Yeah, I remember being pretty disappointed seeing all the low res textures (all those unreadable signs!) and stuff as I had just played through F.E.A.R. back then, which was five years older and looked superior in every aspect.

Well, to be fair, they very clearly didn't want you to actually read things...

@fisk0: Yeah, I actually thought of F.E.A.R. on Xbox 360 even, when I was playing it at one point (as opposed to the PC version), and I remember even that looking better in many ways.

The graphics are for sure one of the weakest parts of the game, both on a technical level (texture quality not great, even on PC it wasn't much better) and overall art design is some OK Soviet-era stuff but absolutely none of it is memorable or super eye catching like the visual looks of a Half-Life 2 or the BioShocks. It really is a low-end B-tier version of one of those games, which is a tough role to have, because so few people emulate that style of sci-fi shooter-with-kinda-grandiose-nightmare-future-storyline (or at least, no one has made many of those since about 2004-2006, when stuff like Pariah was coming out), it compares really unfavourably because you immediately think on games like Half-Life and BioShock which do "FPS + powers + weird alternate history" so much better than Singularity.

I remember it being pretty cool. The endings stick out in my mind as fun/dumb things, especially with the way my dad surprised me by jokingly getting the secret 3rd ending entirely by accident.

@nicolenomicon said:

Secret 3rd ending is secret best ending.

It was good all things considered. I bought it on Steam for $5 and it was the best $5 game I ever bought.

I really enjoyed this game. I still have it installed on my computer, actually. :-D

It might sound odd, but I found it quite endearing how the game's tone veered all over the place. At first, your character is wandering around a bleak, ruined cityscape in which something very clearly went terribly wrong. You only have a few bullets for your pistol and ammo is particularly scarce, so every monster you see is a "should I or shouldn't I?" proposition. Well, until half an hour in when you find a fully functioning assault rifle sitting in the open with a bunch of ammo. Then the game immediately shifts gears from survival horror to first person shooter, gives you superpowers, introduces an upgrade system, and starts getting really campy and silly with its Soviet propaganda and ludicrous time travel nonsense.

Oh, and they eventually give you unlimited time power energy for the last few hours of the game, so enjoy that. At that point, the game's just utterly absurd in a glorious, power-trip way.

So yeah, I totally recommend it. Incidentally, it's also the game that got me into Call of Duty (which is fitting, since Raven works on Call of Duty a lot). There's one scene halfway through where the game takes control away from you and tries for "first person cinematic with QTE interactivity" stuff. I'd never seen that before to such an extent, so I was a tad bemused. I came to the forums here and saw someone critiquing the cribbing of Call of Duty in a Bioshock clone, and thought "well, crap... I guess I really need to play Call of Duty to know just how this game copied it." Now, 10 Call of Duty games later, I have no regrets. :-P

@ntm: I can definitely see how you would be disappointed if you went in expecting something of the same quality as Bioshock or Half-Life 2. I am a sucker for upgrade systems in games, especially ones that reward using your abilities to find secret areas. So that was pretty much what made it work for me. A lot of the best puzzles involving your time powers are entirely optional but reward you with an insane amount of E99 if you complete them. Of course that makes the game stupid easy towards the end but then it just plays into the whole power fantasy aspect which works for the final third of the game. But never is it on the same level as the games that inspired it.

@raven10: I didn't expect to like it as much as Bioshock, or even Half Life really, but I was hoping for something more interesting than what it actually was. It was more like, well if it's similar to Bioshock, I might like it. I love games with great settings, and great stories; Singularity isn't that to me. I didn't finish it, and have moved on. I'll pick it back up at some point down the road maybe.

Amazing. A proper solid old-school no-nonsense shooter.