Like Lost, but less confusing
When you land on the installation of Katurga-12 you discover that the place is predictably riddled with flesh-eating mutants, former inhabitants affected by the radiation, and as you search the facility for clues you'll get access to plenty of standard first person shooter fare, including weapon lockers, upgrade stations, med-kits and weaponry.Though Singluarity's comic-book style isn't quite up to the standard of Bioshock, there's something very Rapture-like about the abandoned city. Katurga-12 has a thick atmosphere running through its corpse-filled corridors, while its many rooms are mysterious enough to make you wonder what the hell's been going on here.Though this is a linear adventure, you can stray off the beaten track and it's worth doing so to discover film projectors that deliver messages to the inhabitants of the now desolate base.
These film clips help to build the storyline and - in the same intriguing way that the Dharma Initiavite sent video messages to the island inhabitants in the TV show "Lost" - you'll be glued to the TV to listen to them. And, just like "Lost," the theme of time travel crops up again and again and even affects the type of enemies that you fight as you switch between 1955 and the present day. You'll also discover notes lying around that leak further clues as to the Russians plans and you'll stumble across a secret organisation that is also keen to expore what the Russians were up to. It all makes for an intriguing backdrop to some solid first person shooter action.
Alongside the standard weapon set, which includes the likes of a pistol, shotgun and sniper rifle, there's also plenty of prototypes to master that the Russians were working on. The weapon set is balanced and varied, targeting mechanics are spot-on and each of the fire-arms has its own unique feel and strengths and weaknesses. There's some great prototype weapons, such as the Seeker, where time slows down and you can use the right analogue stick to direct the bullet at enemies, but it's equally as fun using a sniper rifle to blast heads clean of soldiers or decapitate limbs with a single bullet. Like Wolfenstein, this is a fast-paced, visually violent and frequently intense game that creates tension by throwing enemies at you and giving you only small pockets of ammo to use.
Continued overleaf...