Singularity Review

After observing a spike in radiation levels over the Russian island of Katorga-12, US troops are sent in to infiltrate and investigate the island. After a strange occurrence of incidents, including time travel, it turns out that you have drastically altered the timeline, throwing the world into Russian rule. Using the help of newly acquired "friends" and weaponry, can you revert things to normal? Do you even want to?

The story starts out plainly enough, until you’ve crashed landed on Katorga-12 and start running into some interesting creatures. They are human-like in nature, but with very decayed and mutated bodies. Oh, and they are super aggressive and out to eat you. In a hurry to meet back up with your squad mates, you run into an old building, where you are thrust back in time, to when the building was burning down in 1955. You happen across an individual who is clinging on for his life, and decide to save him. Unfortunately, that kind of altered the time line, and now the man you saved is the man you are trying to kill to set things right.

You return to your time, in 2010, shortly after rescuing this man, Demichev. He then captures you in 2010, and wants to know about your time traveling powers, which you are unaware of, but you escape with the help of Mir-12, some underground group trying to figure out this time traveling thing. From then on, you are running around the island, both in 2010 and in 1955, trying to get the time line back to the way it was and correct all of your mistakes. You’ll find out a lot about the happenings on Katorga-12 and how all of these things came to pass, with the help of various notes and recordings scattered around the island. Mir-12 agent Kathryn, and 1955 scientist Barisov will also help you try to solve this mystery.

Katorga-12 was first discovered as the only place that contained a super rare and powerful element, E-99. Once found, the Russians built all sorts of facilities on the island to research its unique characteristics and capabilities, including weapons research and time travel. Unfortunately, a terrible accident occurred, killing most of the island’s inhabitants, and mutating the rest into horrifying creatures who you must now battle.

Some of these enemies are pretty cool, while others are quite annoying. Most take a humanoid appearance, with special powers, such as teleporting through time and space, making them worthy adversaries. Other enemies are little exploding kamikaze bugs, which are bothersome and attack in swarms, and another is similar to a giant, acid-spitting spider. So, there is a decent variety of enemies, but you’ll usually face the humanoid opponents, as well as Demichev’s soldiers who have guns, so you can’t go running around all willy nilly.

Aside from a range of standard guns, like a pistol, machine gun, and shotgun, you also have more advanced weaponry, like a spike gun, remote controllable grenade launcher, or sniper rifle that allows you to slow time. There is even this sweet rifle where you can control the bullet after firing, so you can wind it around cover and obstacles and still hit your target in the face, delivering a satisfying explosion. You also have the help of your Time Manipulation Device, or TMD. This little guy is very useful in both puzzle solving and combat. You gain abilities as you progress, but eventually, you can move objects, age objects into their 1955/2010 counterpart, to decay/fix items, create a protective bubble that stops time, use it as a melee attack, and more. The time altering abilities are pretty cool, especially when a pesky adversary is all in your face; just send them to 1955, bwahahaha.

The game isn’t too puzzle heavy, but it has its fair share, and they are pretty inventive. Unfortunately, they are redone again and again, so once you solve it the first time, it’s a no-brainer when you come across it again. However, the first time you come across a puzzle, you will probably be stuck thinking about it for a minute or two, so I was impressed with the inventiveness of the puzzle, and how it doesn’t simply throw the answer in your face. You have to use your powers and the items around you to figure it out.

Singularity does do a good job of setting the mood though. 2010 is pretty disheveled and everything is overgrown, while everything is nice and new in 1955. There are a handful of very atmospheric, and scary moments in the game, where things pop out at you, or the overall environment is truly creepy. There are even messages you can find on walls that have been left by a mysterious person, possibly yourself, which make you question your mission, what you are doing, and who you can trust. To further bring you into the story and what all was going on back in 1955, you can find and read an assortment of notes and listen to audio logs left behind by scientists and other inhabitants. These are left on desks and tables and all over the place. They slow the pacing of the game a bit, as you can stop to read or listen to each one, but if you get really into the story, then it’ll be worth it to investigate as much as possible to learn about what went on on Katorga-12. Obviously though, you can skip right by these and continue on to the action.

Exploration is also beneficial to more action-oriented players, as you can find many, many E-99 tech pieces, which can be used to upgrade powers and weapons. These can be used to increase health and energy, as well as increase your sprint distance, gain more ammo per pickup, and other perks. There are also weapon upgrades which can be used to upgrade each weapon in various stats, like power, reload time, and clip size. There is a problem though, in the way the game limits your movements. If you go through a door to a new section of the map, that door will close off and you won’t be able to go back. So, if there was some stock pile of E-99 tech in one room, but you decide to explore this other room first, which happens to be the main path to the new section, you may get screwed and not be able to back-track to that E-99 horde. This happened to me a few times….quite annoying.

Naturally, Singularity also has a multiplayer mode or two. It features a relatively standard Creatures vs Soldiers deathmatch mode, as well as an Extermination mode, akin to territories. Each mode features humans versus creatures. Humans have multiple class options, each of which has a different perk, such as the ability to teleport short distances, melee, or other such skill. You can also choose a weapon independently of class, like a standard rifle, shotgun, or sniper. The creatures’ classes are a bit more diverse. Each creature class is a different creature, all of which act and move very differently, so many play styles can be used here. One is that large ass spider that can shoot bombs at you, while another creature can place proximity mines. The little tick creature can run up and explode near an enemy, or jump on him, kill him, and inhabit his body, giving you access to his weapon and confuse opponents.

The Creatures vs. Soldiers mode is a standard deathmatch mode and is self-explanatory, but Extermination is more team-based. Here, the humans have to work together to bring three terminals back online. Once online, their spawn gets moved up to that terminal. Of course, the creatures are there to stop you from doing this, so it’s a constant battle to see who can get the upper hand. Once the time limit is reached, or all three terminals get brought online, you switch sides. The team with the most terminals online at the end wins.

Overall, Singularity does a good job of bringing you into the world of Katorga-12 and the E-99 experiments, with the various artifacts you can find and there are cool time manipulation elements to play around with. One downfall is that the NPCs don’t look at you when they talk, which breaks down the immersion, but aside from that, the single player experience is nicely crafted to bring the player into its world. There is then multiplayer which you can delve into, with ranks and leveling up, which could keep you busy for awhile.

Overall Score: 7/10

This review was based on the PlayStation 3 version of the game, however, most of which has been stated should also be applied to the Xbox 360 and PC versions of the game.

Wolfenstein Review

The latest installment of Wolfenstein has just been released. The self-titled iteration in the series brings back famed war hero B.J. Blazkowicz . After escaping a Nazi-filled tanker, he is sent back into a town called Isenstadt, as he is the only one who can put down the Nazis’ plan to use the occult power of the Black Sun to conquer the world. With the help of the resistance, does he have what it takes to succeed and stop their evil plan?

Wolfenstein starts out normal enough. You reach Isenstadt and meet up with the local resistance, who brief you on the situation and show you around town. You’ll have a buddy you can follow for this part, so you can learn your way around the main world, but after that, you can rely on both a world map in the pause menu, and a “GPS” which lets you know which direction to go towards your objective. However, after snooping around a bit, you’ll learn of the research and experiments the Nazis have been doing, and learn of the powers of the Black Sun and Veil.

Once you find a special medallion and crystal, you can use the powers of the Veil. The first power you receive is the ability to see into a new dimension. This turns the world green, and allows you to more easily see enemies, enemy weak points, and pass through hidden doorways. As you collect more crystals throughout the game, you unlock more powers. The three other powers are a shield, the ability to slow down time, and one that makes your weapons do more damage. All of these abilities will put you into the Veil dimension, where special creatures can damage you, so be careful. Also, you use up Veil energy, so you must be sure to use your powers wisely to conserve the energy when you really need it.

Aside from the Veil powers, you have a total of 8 weapons at your disposal, although you don’t have them all from the start. The first weapons you get are a standard MP40 machine gun and Kar98 rifle. However, once you’ve explored a little bit, you’ll find much more interesting weapons, like a Panzershrek rocket launcher, flame thrower, or experimental Nazi weapons, like a Tesla gun. These weapons are fairly useful from the get-go, but you can upgrade all of them at the Black Market if you have some cash. You get money from completing missions and finding gold throughout both the main world and mission levels. You’d be wise to seek out these gold pieces, because upgrades are almost essential to bringing down the Third Reich. Not only can you upgrade the standard components of weapons and increase their capacity, damage dealt, and other such things, but you can add things like scopes and silencers which are very effective. You can also upgrade your Veil powers, which are really awesome.

While the Veil powers are already cool in their own right, the upgrades are devastating. For instance, the shield power can be upgraded to not only reflect bullets back at those that shot them, but to outright destroy anyone who gets too close to you. Turning on this power and running straight into a pack of soldiers is hilariously fantastic. The upgraded bullet empowering ability can destroy tanks with ease and shoot through just about any cover the enemy may be using. And there are also handy melee weapons you can pick up. Using the axe to decapitate German soldiers: priceless.

Wolfenstein is slightly open world, but more linear when you get into a mission. When not in a mission, you are free to wonder around Isenstadt, which is pretty large. You can search for gold or intelligence, which reveals more about the story or gives you artwork, or look for people to talk to who may give you an optional mission to perform. Once you’ve talked to the right people, generally the main characters in safe houses, you can make your way to a main mission. These are in areas outside of the main world and are reached either by getting to areas which are normally blocked off, or via vehicle driven by a fellow resistance fighter.

Most of the missions are about the same, and require you to move through a level and get to the end. Obviously, there is some task to be done, but main objectives are too obvious, unless you pause the game and look at your current objective. Typically though, you are either trying to destroy some piece of machinery or take out a high-ranking official, aka boss. These don’t simply require you to shoot them until they’ve taken enough damage, but rather, entail you finding their weakness and then exploiting it. Some areas are more interesting than others, than a giant castle, but you’ll basically be mowing down Nazis left and right in both. There are a variety of special enemies who use unique weapons, like a flame thrower or ooze-shooting gun, and have distinctive weak points. The AI is decent, but nothing special. Enemies will take cover at times, and rush you at others. There was never a time I can recall when they would just stand around while you shot at them or anything stupid like that. And their grenade throwing abilities? Ridiculously accurate.

The story mode is pretty short, clocking in at under 6 hours for my first play through on “hard”. I got a trophy for beating the game in under 12 hours, so perhaps it may take the average gamer longer. Naturally, it will also take much longer if you look for all of the gold pieces, intelligence, tomes, and secret missions throughout the game, which will greatly extend the play. Once you have beaten the game though, you can play a new one with cheats activated, which allow for pumpkin heads, and give you all of the weapons and upgrades from the start. Once that has gotten stale though, you can head over to the multiplayer.

In the current era of Call of Duty and Halo, it can be hard for a game, especially FPS, to create a good multiplayer universe and grab gamers’ attention, but Wolfenstein does a good job of offering players some engaging content. Wolfenstein provides 3 modes to play on 8 maps. The first mode is your standard team deathmatch, while the other two are objective. Both feature the option of choosing from three different classes: soldier, engineer, and medic. Each class is unique, having their own powers and options for weapons. The soldier can use any weapon, from the MP40 and Kar98, to a Panzershrek and flamethrower. The engineer and medic can only use a MP40 or Kar98, but have unique abilities that make them useful, especially in objective matches. Each map has their own objectives that you must complete for victory, and engineers are vital in success, as they are the only ones who can plant explosives to access areas needed for victory and build bridges and ladders.

There is also a ranking system in the game, that is very similar to others and levels you up based on your stats, which are all trackable, including kills, objectives met, etc. You also gain money for every kill and objective you complete, which can be used similarly to story mode, allowing you to purchase weapon and ability upgrades. Furthermore, there are some old-school-type awards given at the end of each match, which are always fun to get. The games I played did seem a bit laggy, and weren’t the smoothest I’ve ever experienced, but they were definitely playable. This is my first experience with PS3’s online play, so I’m not sure if it was more the PS3 or the game itself. Again though, it was totally playable.

Overall, Wolfenstein presents an engaging story featuring the legendary B.J. Blazkowicz. While the FPS mechanics are fairly standard, the game provides some unique weapons as well as cool Veil powers to devastate the enemy. There is plenty to explore in the game, from collecting all of the gold and intelligence, to seeking out resistance members to help out. Once you’ve done that, you can play up the multiplayer, where you can rank up to level 50 I believe, and upgrade your characters and weapons.

Overall Score: 7/10

Posted in cooperation with Gamers Platform