At its most basic level, imagine there’s a large tree blocking your path. Zap it back 50 years with the TMD and it becomes a mere sapling that you can easily step over. In other scenarios, you can replace staircases to get upstairs, revert crates to their former glory in order to snaffle their ammo (all of which luckily works in your 2010 weapons) and remove brick walls in order to progress though buildings.
The Time Manipulation Device can also be used on human enemies, which in theory should reduce them to children or pensioners and thus make them easier to kill. For reasons of good taste, Raven have settled on your enemies devolving and evolving into some kind of gelatinous mass, which then runs around attacking all and sundry.
Enemies in Singularity take many forms, from the modern-day guards to ’50s soldiers who appear when you slip into a so-called “Event Echo.” Throw in mutated flora and fauna as well as parasitic foes, and it’s clear you’re going to be up against a lot. Thankfully, you’re equipped with some nifty contemporary weapons – pistols, shotguns, and machine guns – including one that has the ability to chuck rockets back at their senders. As the game progresses, upgrades become available, and the story also unfolds with the help of exposition-filled collectibles (a la Bioshock) for those prepared to search for them.
As for the multiplayer, Lee-Creel could only confirm, “It is time-based, and you do have some of the time stuff integrated in there… I’ve played it; it’s a lot of fun.” How much fun Singularity will be for us remains to be seen, so we’ll have to fast forward to later in the year to find out. …See what we did there?
Aug 13, 2009
