I'd heard a lot of people say Singularity was potentially a FPS hidden gem. I'd mostly agree with that summation although I would urge caution for people looking for anything really new with the game. I'll explain.
You play as a US marine who is on a recon mission to a remote and supposedly abandoned Soviet science project when, stop me if you've heard this before, his helicopter crash lands on the island and he soon finds out not everything is as it seems.
You learn that in the 1950's an accident caused by scientists pissing about with a newly found element led to a gigantic explosion on the island that has altered the very fabric of space/time itself. Of course this means the islanders have been mutated into zombies and the local fauna has become carnivorous but it has also left ripples to the past that you can pass through.
How this translates to the gameplay though is the use of a time altering gauntlet which allows you to manipulate the "time state" of certain interactable objects. This in turn gives the gameplay a slightly more puzzle orientated flavour than some of its contemporaries.
That said, the puzzling is limited to small sections and the obstacles themselves are usually fairly easy to bypass owing to there being a limited number of things that can be interacted with. So, if you see a shutter that is slightly open you know to look for a crate to crush to pop under the shutter before reinstating the crates original state thus opening the shutter. Easy stuff. Think more Half-Life 2 than Portal, even if the gauntlet borrows Portal's orange and blue colour scheme.
The gunplay then would have to be good to balance out the easy puzzling and fortunately it is...mostly. The pistol is piss weak in all respects and the shotgun spits rather than blows but all is made up for with the most outrageously overpowered minigun I've had the pleasure to use. Seriously, upgrade this thing and it's game over. Makes things a bit too easy in all honesty but whatever. There's also a cool sniper rifle that you can activate a slow-mo effect with and a grenade launcher that can fire rolling grenades that you control directly, maneuvering into crowded areas.
You can use the gauntlet in combat as well, although it's kind of an expensive drain of resources to do the same job the guns do. You can use it to mutate soldiers who turn against their allies and you can grab things like grenades and explosive barrels out of the air (again like HL2) to throw back at enemies.
I enjoyed the game overall though. It's a bit rough around the edges and it tries to be more high minded and poetic than it really deserves to be towards the end. It's a good ride on its own despite its attempts to emulate much better games and is indeed a bit of a hidden gem.
You play as a US marine who is on a recon mission to a remote and supposedly abandoned Soviet science project when, stop me if you've heard this before, his helicopter crash lands on the island and he soon finds out not everything is as it seems.
You learn that in the 1950's an accident caused by scientists pissing about with a newly found element led to a gigantic explosion on the island that has altered the very fabric of space/time itself. Of course this means the islanders have been mutated into zombies and the local fauna has become carnivorous but it has also left ripples to the past that you can pass through.
How this translates to the gameplay though is the use of a time altering gauntlet which allows you to manipulate the "time state" of certain interactable objects. This in turn gives the gameplay a slightly more puzzle orientated flavour than some of its contemporaries.
That said, the puzzling is limited to small sections and the obstacles themselves are usually fairly easy to bypass owing to there being a limited number of things that can be interacted with. So, if you see a shutter that is slightly open you know to look for a crate to crush to pop under the shutter before reinstating the crates original state thus opening the shutter. Easy stuff. Think more Half-Life 2 than Portal, even if the gauntlet borrows Portal's orange and blue colour scheme.
The gunplay then would have to be good to balance out the easy puzzling and fortunately it is...mostly. The pistol is piss weak in all respects and the shotgun spits rather than blows but all is made up for with the most outrageously overpowered minigun I've had the pleasure to use. Seriously, upgrade this thing and it's game over. Makes things a bit too easy in all honesty but whatever. There's also a cool sniper rifle that you can activate a slow-mo effect with and a grenade launcher that can fire rolling grenades that you control directly, maneuvering into crowded areas.
You can use the gauntlet in combat as well, although it's kind of an expensive drain of resources to do the same job the guns do. You can use it to mutate soldiers who turn against their allies and you can grab things like grenades and explosive barrels out of the air (again like HL2) to throw back at enemies.
I enjoyed the game overall though. It's a bit rough around the edges and it tries to be more high minded and poetic than it really deserves to be towards the end. It's a good ride on its own despite its attempts to emulate much better games and is indeed a bit of a hidden gem.
Motocross Madness (360)
This is the free game of the month for Xbox live subscribers like myself. Although it's potentially very short game, it's also one that is a bit of a fun throwback to the days of the, unrelated, Midtown Madness series but on bikes and with Avatars (TM).
There are four main modes: race, time trial, trick and free roam. The first three are fairly self explanatory but the fourth is the most intriguing. Basically the nine tracks in the game are spread out across three locations, Egypt, Australia and Iceland which can be each be driven around in a open world fashion. There's some focus, collecting skulls and money coins, but I spent most of my time drifting across the desert or doing donuts around bubbling geysers. It's fun.
That's not to say the other modes are weak, they aren't at all. The bikes have a good feeling of weight behind them and it's almost like a kart racer in the way you drift around corners. You have a boost meter that is filled by performing tricks off big jumps that can come in handy. You perform tricks with various button presses mid-air like most trick oriented games and each system flows it one another in a very satisfying way.
The problem is the game is a bit too easy. In two sit downs I got all the gold medals in race, time trial and tricks modes and a good lot of medals in free roam. It's one of those games that showers you with achievements and unlockables for even the smallest actions. It isn't a full price release so I get it's not meant to be a long term project like Forza, but still. I guess the onus is on online competition and stuff which is not really my bag.
It's definitely a worthy download considering it's free. FREE! Well, as long as you pay for a gold account. So not free at all.
There are four main modes: race, time trial, trick and free roam. The first three are fairly self explanatory but the fourth is the most intriguing. Basically the nine tracks in the game are spread out across three locations, Egypt, Australia and Iceland which can be each be driven around in a open world fashion. There's some focus, collecting skulls and money coins, but I spent most of my time drifting across the desert or doing donuts around bubbling geysers. It's fun.
That's not to say the other modes are weak, they aren't at all. The bikes have a good feeling of weight behind them and it's almost like a kart racer in the way you drift around corners. You have a boost meter that is filled by performing tricks off big jumps that can come in handy. You perform tricks with various button presses mid-air like most trick oriented games and each system flows it one another in a very satisfying way.
The problem is the game is a bit too easy. In two sit downs I got all the gold medals in race, time trial and tricks modes and a good lot of medals in free roam. It's one of those games that showers you with achievements and unlockables for even the smallest actions. It isn't a full price release so I get it's not meant to be a long term project like Forza, but still. I guess the onus is on online competition and stuff which is not really my bag.
It's definitely a worthy download considering it's free. FREE! Well, as long as you pay for a gold account. So not free at all.
I Am Alive (360)
I Am Alive is one of those games often described as "interesting". It's a nice concept almost completely ruined by flawed execution.
You play as a gruff chap who is good at mountaineering trying to find his family lost in an America literally torn apart by cataclysmic earthquakes. Said earthquakes have left the landscape absolutely caked in toxic dust which will kill the player if they stay submerged in it too long, which isn't very long at all. Thankfully the dust is only really potent at ground level meaning if you stay above 20 feet or below ground you'll be okay.
The majority of the game is platforming in the Ubisoft mold of Prince of Persia/Assassin's Creed. What's new here is that your character doesn't have unlimited stamina and more exuberant jumps will cost him a good deal of his stamina gauge. If the gauge hits zero you fall off and die so there's a bit of strategy involved in planning out your path across the ruins. Provisions and pitons become absolutely vital items in your inventory, probably more so than ammo and health packs.
For whatever reason though the designers decided to limit the amount of continues. You can earn more, usually through good deeds, but it's a bit odd that a game where progression is very often left literally hanging in the balance to feature such an archaic and punishing system. It certainly adds some tension but it's also a touch contrived.
There are other annoyances as well. At times the game tries too hard to impress upon the player its dusty and desolate landscape which results in occasions where it is nearly impossible to see where you are going or where you have been. Again, it adds a slight bit of tension but it also adds a lot of frustration, especially when combined with the limited retries.
Where the game suffers most though is in its combat. The system itself is fine; you have a bow and (occasionally) a handgun with limited bullets. Therefore confrontations are set up so you have to try to either bluff your way out of or try to intimidate your antagonists, which can be done even if your handgun is empty. And this works fine and once again adds tension...at first.
Later on you start to meet groups of people who just can't be bluffed or intimidated or even sneaked past, and so you are forced to enter murder mode. This becomes a game of shooting the guy with the gun first and then systematically stabbing his friends to death. Towards the arse end of the game each encounter plays out this way and it's annoying that such a formally promising mechanic goes to waste.
The ending itself is also pretty bad. It aims for poignant but hits mystifying and underwhelming. It's so sloppy and unsatisfying that I had to check Damon Lindelof wasn't somehow involved.
Ironically a really interesting game lies buried somewhere inside I Am Alive's structure but it is covered by the dust and debris caused by the unsatisfying way the games systems come together.
I'd recommend a play if you dig Ubisoft's 3D action-platformers or want a short game with some interesting but flawed systems. Otherwise avoid.
You play as a gruff chap who is good at mountaineering trying to find his family lost in an America literally torn apart by cataclysmic earthquakes. Said earthquakes have left the landscape absolutely caked in toxic dust which will kill the player if they stay submerged in it too long, which isn't very long at all. Thankfully the dust is only really potent at ground level meaning if you stay above 20 feet or below ground you'll be okay.
The majority of the game is platforming in the Ubisoft mold of Prince of Persia/Assassin's Creed. What's new here is that your character doesn't have unlimited stamina and more exuberant jumps will cost him a good deal of his stamina gauge. If the gauge hits zero you fall off and die so there's a bit of strategy involved in planning out your path across the ruins. Provisions and pitons become absolutely vital items in your inventory, probably more so than ammo and health packs.
For whatever reason though the designers decided to limit the amount of continues. You can earn more, usually through good deeds, but it's a bit odd that a game where progression is very often left literally hanging in the balance to feature such an archaic and punishing system. It certainly adds some tension but it's also a touch contrived.
There are other annoyances as well. At times the game tries too hard to impress upon the player its dusty and desolate landscape which results in occasions where it is nearly impossible to see where you are going or where you have been. Again, it adds a slight bit of tension but it also adds a lot of frustration, especially when combined with the limited retries.
Where the game suffers most though is in its combat. The system itself is fine; you have a bow and (occasionally) a handgun with limited bullets. Therefore confrontations are set up so you have to try to either bluff your way out of or try to intimidate your antagonists, which can be done even if your handgun is empty. And this works fine and once again adds tension...at first.
Later on you start to meet groups of people who just can't be bluffed or intimidated or even sneaked past, and so you are forced to enter murder mode. This becomes a game of shooting the guy with the gun first and then systematically stabbing his friends to death. Towards the arse end of the game each encounter plays out this way and it's annoying that such a formally promising mechanic goes to waste.
The ending itself is also pretty bad. It aims for poignant but hits mystifying and underwhelming. It's so sloppy and unsatisfying that I had to check Damon Lindelof wasn't somehow involved.
Ironically a really interesting game lies buried somewhere inside I Am Alive's structure but it is covered by the dust and debris caused by the unsatisfying way the games systems come together.
I'd recommend a play if you dig Ubisoft's 3D action-platformers or want a short game with some interesting but flawed systems. Otherwise avoid.
