If you aren't familiar with games that have time-bending functionality, they don't make sense until you play them. Our minds think linearly, which is why puzzle games like Portal (bending space) and Braid (bending & using time) are so interesting to us. It's just human nature. But space is easy; things are here, or there. Time is not so easy, because nobody can really agree with how time works. We only know that it goes one way for us.
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Raven Software is taking a huge risk by working on a time sensitive videogame, especially one that isn't a puzzler. Their sci-fi FPS links the 1950's with 2010, a concept we're not sure we understand fully. From our demo, the developers said that the game takes place in Russia, where the testing of a chemical known only as E99 caused a Chernobyl-like accident that left the surrounding area, instead of radioactive, in and out of different time periods. And also highly unstable.
Playing as a Sgt. Renko, doing we don't know what besides investigating, Renko finds himself with a TMD, or Time Manipulation Device. The TMD works by reverting characters and objects back or forward in time, depending on where he is. Meaning the game takes place in one of three times: 1950, 2010, or in some sort of time limbo, called the Null Zone where, well, time doesn't exist. For example, if there's a broken box, Renko can use the TMD to turn back time to when it wasn't broken, then open it for items. He can also use it on enemies to make them simply vanish, since they weren't born 60 years ago.
How it works on enemies is still questionable, since it is a one hit kill, but we do know that the TMD is like Half-Life 2's gravity gun as well. It's functions aren't completely known to us, but in the demo we saw it was used to completely reconstruct a building, which later became part of the level.
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There are a few other tidbits we know about Singularity. Because the area is time-unstable, there are echoes of the past that occur rather frequently, which give hints to progress the story and we're sure to help find hidden items. There is also the Chromolight, which lets players see objects that are in the past, in these echoes, and pull them into the present. I'm not sure what science would have to say about doing something like that, but the fabric of space-time is already ripping in fury.
We also know that Singularity has multiplayer, but what that is and what it entails is a mystery.
Singularity is set for release this fall for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.
