by David Pilcher My boss called and asked me the other day if I wanted to review Singularity or Prince of Persia. After watching the videos on the net, I begged him to let me review Singularity. If you like FPS (First Person Shooter) games like I do, then you’d probably have done the same. Nate is the main character in Singularity and an Air Force pilot. At the very beginning of the game he’s (scrambled) to fly over some “strange goings on” off the coast of Russia. Nate’s plane crashes and discovers the TMD – Time Manipulation Device. This immediately jumps you into the game where you manipulate time – not like a rewind or fast forward button, but you experience “time waves” and a place between 2010 and 1950 called the “null zone”. You’ll find people and actions in the null zone that are trapped, repeating their last moments in time over and over again. You will also manipulate time for objects and people in your environment in some really unique ways. But some of your enemies can use time against you as well. The Zex can phase out of your reality and pop in and out in front of you. You can use the TMD or conventional weapons against them. There is a pulse function to your TMD that pulls the Zex back into your current time. Then you can age them to dust or revert them back to the original soldiers they were before they became the horrible Zex creatures. Watch the videos online – you’ll get excited about this game. Really excited. This game is made by the Raven Software division of Activision. I wondered what games the Raven division had made lately? Here’s the recent short list: Wolfenstein released August 2009. Average of 7.5 out of 10 – based on 52 reviews. X-Men Origins: Wolverine released May 2009. Average of 7 out of 10 – based on 64 reviews Quake 4 released November 2005. Average of 7.5 out of 10 on 78 reviews. Raven Software has developed some titles that have done fairly well, and now Activision has boosted them up to the next Call of Duty: Black Ops project (according to several recent sources). Where do I think Singularity is going to rank on average among the fifty to seventy reviewers out there? My guess? 8 out 10. Based on what I’ve seen in the videos and a small handful of previews thus far, the basic gameplay of Singularity is going to be par for the FPS course. Claimed as a labor of love by Raven, the storyline looks better than their past games, and the manipulation of the environment using the “Singularity affect” looks awesome. The game was originally going to be released in the fall of 2009, but it was pushed out to avoid an overlap with the all-impressive Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – another Activision game. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the game could be the puzzle solving. The puzzles look interesting and challenging. They will heavily involve the TMD allowing you to pull useful objects from different time periods to help you. Also, since this is a Raven FPS game, you’ll have some powerful weapons (considering both Wolfenstein and Quake 4 has some really cool guns), including a revolver called the E99, which allows you to manipulate your bullet’s path in midair. What would I do? I’ve already reserved the game. I really want this to be a good game – everything I’ve seen thus far leads me to believe it will be.