Forums > Game Forums > Singularity > This game is crazy fun!
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 7/27/2010 6:06 PM · Permalink · Report
Guys, is anyone playing it? Grab a copy! It's non-stop awesomeness. Steals every idea that was used in FPSs before, and adds some of its own! Intense, varied, and just... insane fun!!
Yeah, yeah, derivative, linear, gimmicky, shamelessly steals famous ideas of others. Who cares :)
j.raido 【雷堂嬢太朗】 (95420) on 7/27/2010 8:04 PM · Permalink · Report
This sounds like an FPS equivalent of Darksiders. I freaking loved Darksiders. One of the fun things about Darksiders was picking out what game each of the mechanics was lifted from. Not so keen on FPSs, but I'll add this game to my list to pick up eventually...though I'm perpetually broke so it's a long list. ;) Hopefully it's as much fun as you're making it out to be!
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 7/28/2010 4:43 AM · Permalink · Report
Hopefully it's as much fun as you're making it out to be!
Well, any game in which you can make enemies die of old age or turn a soldier into a mutant who will then attack other soldiers is a winner in my book :)
How about fighting a screen-filling, screen-shattering giant insect boss on a train that is falling into the abyss?
Sneaking through creepy sewers past horrifying abominations who are blind and only react to noise?
Sniping enemies in slow motion? Catching an inflammable barrel that is thrown at you and throw it right back?
It's Half Life 2 + Bioshock + every FPS element you can think of = loads of fun! :)
Slug Camargo (583) on 7/28/2010 6:38 AM · Permalink · Report
I guess I am gonna give it a try sooner or later, but for now I'll say that your post made me think about one thing: Right now I'm replaying Episode 2 (as part of an epic Half-Life 2 marathon thing I have going on), and I'm confirming firsthand why is it that I hold this series in such high regard, as well as the frankly uncanny abyss that separates them from pretty much every other FPS ever, ever.
And since this Singularity thing is a game that has a gamepad in mind from the get go, I doubt it can begin to compare. Seriously, not to be a fanboi (which I am), and I'm sure Singularity has some neat superpowers and whatnot -just as, say, BioShock had the mind-numbingly beautiful art direction-; but the Half-Life 2's are just ridiculously better than anything else.
Everyone should replay them every year or so to remember just how pathetic the genre is. It's sort of sad to think that we've come this far and shooters are still living under Half-Life 2's shadow.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 7/28/2010 7:05 AM · Permalink · Report
And since this Singularity thing is a game that has a gamepad in mind from the get go
? Why? Not at all. It plays great with keyboard and mouse. You mean because it was released for consoles too? So was HL2 :)
the frankly uncanny abyss that separates them from pretty much every other FPS ever, ever.
Dunno, I love HL2, it's fun and all, but I don't think it's the best ever. What is "best ever", anyway? There is no such thing.
Indra was here (20755) on 7/28/2010 8:41 AM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Unicorn Lynx wrote--]Guys, is anyone playing it? Grab a copy! It's non-stop awesomeness. Steals every idea that was used in FPSs before, and adds some of its own! Intense, varied, and just... insane fun!! [/Q --end Unicorn Lynx wrote--] We've lost him! They got to him, dang commies!!!
Downloading.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 7/28/2010 8:59 AM · Permalink · Report
Well, I finished the game. Kinda short in my opinion. Nice endings, though, with somewhat unusual moral choices.
Overall, it was a blast. After having cooled off, I realized it doesn't exactly re-invent the genre and its linearity can get annoying. But for fans of atmospheric, gimmicky FPSs, it doesn't get any better than this.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 7/29/2010 6:05 AM · Permalink · Report
Not sure you would like it, Sam. I know you didn't like BioShock, and this game is pretty much BioShock in Soviet Russia.
Slug Camargo (583) on 8/1/2010 2:26 AM · edited · Permalink · Report
OK, I got me one of those demo things and I've played a bit, and it does seem like a fun one, this Singularity. Certainly not Half-Life 2 level, but good anyway. The controls are very responsive, there's some nice damage localization, and the mouse works just like baby Jesus intended it; so this should be some nice fun, especially if those super powers are anything as good as advertised. Definitely a buy, though not before it hits a reasonable price.
The story, however... Dear God, how I f'ing hate Americans and their stupid stories D= This game would've done very well by either taking a cue from Fallout 3 and laugh at itself a bit or just throw the entire story out the window for good; because seriously, it shoots out seven kinds of stupid from the get go, and everything points at it getting more and more retarded as it goes on. I'm not sure whether this is the worst story I've seen in my life or I'm just getting increasingly less permissive as I get older (probably the latter), but at any rate this is so bad it's not even laughably bad, it's just I-would-turn-the-volume-down-all-the-way-just-to-escape-all-this-stupidity bad, which is a very bad kind of bad.
Seriously, Raven, it hasn't been 1997 for a while now, it's high time you get a writer. Or a sense of humor.
The funniest part is, I think that if they had ditched the whole military operation part and just leave the audio diaries and notes from the inhabitants of the island, the thing would've been nicely improved right there, because some of those diaries do make up for some good atmosphere.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 8/1/2010 4:56 AM · Permalink · Report
The story, however...
Hmm... well, if you were able to tolerate the weak, generic, and nearly non-existent story of Half-Life 2, you'll be okay with the story of Singularity. At any rate it's much better than the poor excuse for a story they have in HL2.
That's not to say it's great or something. But the ending makes up for the... err... substantial lack of it during almost the entire game. It's good, really. Check it out.
Slug Camargo (583) on 8/1/2010 5:36 AM · Permalink · Report
But you see, that's my point: It's all in the delivery. Just like telling a joke. HL2 is indeed stupid and has little to offer in terms of story (other than the atmosphere, which would work without a story anyway), but it does laugh at itself (especially the episodes), and that's something really big in my opinion. Sometimes that's all it takes to make a stupid story way better. That's one of the things (maybe even the main thing) that makes me love Fallout 3 so much: Its unique (in gaming anyway) Verhoeven-style self-conscious humor. It's like you can't get mad at a game that acknowledges its own stupidity like that.
On the other hand (at least from what I've seen so far), Singularity seems to want me to take its B-movie writing seriously, and that's borderline insulting. I may have done so in 1993, but then I was 17 at the time.
But like I said, you rarely get shooters this responsive in these days, and a solid gameplay certainly makes a game worth playing too. Singularity did surprise me in that regard. It's nice to see that Raven is one of the few PC-born developers that hasn't forgotten about us =P
Slug Camargo (583) on 8/15/2010 8:39 AM · Permalink · Report
All right, I guess fair is fair. I have a confession to make.
I've been playing this a little bit more and while I still think the story is horrible beyond imagination, the game is indeed crazy fun. Not only it has climbed to the top of my to-buy list, I just got into my first crowded fight with all the superpowers on (at least I think it's all of them, maybe there are more later), and while I was seamlessly switching between shooting, slowing down time, gravity-pulling stuff and throwing it back to my enemies and whatnot, I had a sudden realization: "This is exactly how BioShock should play! =O "
I am just about the biggest BioShock fanboi ever, but I always felt the gameplay was in dire need of a little bit of tweaking, and while the sequel does improve things, it still needs something else. It's something about the way you switch between weapons and powers, it just doesn't feel completely right. It is good, crazy fun and all, but it just feels like it should be somewhat... smoother, so to say. It's something I could never quite put my finger on. Well, now I know. Whatever it is, Singularity nails it. Levine should forget about Unreal and just license this engine before he gets any further into the next one.
So there.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 8/15/2010 8:43 AM · Permalink · Report
Hehe, glad you liked it. And the story is not that bad, come on. The ending plot twist is really cool! You'll see :)
Kabushi (261211) on 8/15/2010 12:16 PM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Dr. M. "Schadenfreude" Von Katze wrote--]Levine should forget about Unreal and just license this engine before he gets any further into the next one. [/Q --end Dr. M. "Schadenfreude" Von Katze wrote--] Eh, Singularity uses the Unreal engine too ;)
Slug Camargo (583) on 8/20/2010 10:13 PM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start leileilol wrote--]I heard good things about Singularity and have yet to play it... is it one of those Mike Gummelt-ish games that tries to cram the Duke3D and Heretic elements together? [/Q --end leileilol wrote--] What kind of description is that? o_O What would those "elements" be exactly? And while we're at it, which games (I assume that "one of those" means there are a lot of them) would answer to such description? I mean, the only thing I can imagine would be a mediocre shooter in which some wizard blows up strippers while making painfully lame attempts at cracking wise, and I don't think I've ever heard of anything like that.
Furthermore, who even remembers Heretic anymore?
lilalurl (733) on 8/20/2010 10:58 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Dr. M. "Schadenfreude" Von Katze wrote--] Furthermore, who even remembers Heretic anymore? [/Q --end Dr. M. "Schadenfreude" Von Katze wrote--]
People working on the Doomsday engine (source port):
http://dengine.net/games
If you look around there you will also see some people who worked on doing 3D models and "improved" songs (playing the MIDI files with specific soundfonts and exporting them, as MP3 or ogg I don't remember)
jmva16 who ported the game to the DS:
http://heretic.drunkencoders.com/
I think there is also a PSP port and there probably is/will be one for the Pandora.
Me, as I always preferred (compared to Doom as I suppose your are making a tacit reference to it):
- its atmosphere
- its soundtrack/sound effects
- the ability to look up and down (and thus having less chances that the auto-aiming "help" hit the wrong enemy when you are aiming at another one. Well, now it does not really matter with the engine ports)
- the items (tome of power giving a new function to each weapon rather than simply increasing damage, the wings of wrath allowing you to fly and find some secrets)....
leilei (343) on 8/20/2010 11:21 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Dr. M. "Schadenfreude" Von Katze wrote--] What kind of description is that? [/Q --end Dr. M. "Schadenfreude" Von Katze wrote--]
Ever played Hexen II? It's sort of a close approximate of what Mike Gummelt's Ultimate Quake tried to be and he programmed both. Another Raven game that was close to this is Jedi Knight II and Jedi Academy which could spirtually qualify as Hexen III and Hexen IV in terms of the strikingly similar (but classless and definitely not monstery) gameplay and he programmed those as well. I was wondering if Singularity followed the same path since he worked on it too, but don't know if he had a designer role in it.
Basically the common things observed:
-
The "3 keys" Inventory system seen in Heretic and Duke3D (also in Hexen2 and JK2)
-
A form of Laser Tripmines just like Duke3D (Ultimate Quake's tripmine fire mode for the Grenade Launcher, Hexen II's Assassin Glyph functioned as a "line of chain" tripbomb, and the Tripmines in JK2/JKA)
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Force powers (Ultimate Quake had jedi powers, Hexen II had them in artifacts, JK2/JKA capitalized heavily on this)
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Laser sword (Ultimate Quake had a lightsaber, JK2/JKA definitely does)
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RPG elements (UQ, Hexen II)
It's just these things are common and I was wondering if Singularity continued this trend since it's catching gamer praise. There's no demo so I can't really find out myself yet. :)
There needs to be a Raven game that has a Mike Gummelt design with an oldschool Brian Pelletier artistic direction IMO. That is the kind of Raven we once had in the '90s that we're missing today - a FPS factory that strays far from the formula.