Zero Punctuation: Singularity

EHKOS

Madness to my Methods
Feb 28, 2010
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I don't see why he ripped on the time powers that much, I enjoyed them immensly.
 

redscum

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Jul 21, 2010
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Phenom828 said:
redscum said:
Phenom828 said:
Well, this was a surprise. Him reviewing the game I mean, not him not liking it. I thought Singularity was pretty fun and I think he missed a lot of points that made it fun. But I agree with the laughability of the "plot-twist". Although honestly I enterpreted the "plot-twist" as something else.
The fact that you were the annomaly, not the saving. And the fact that you have to kill yourself in order to (maybe) set everything right again.
I'm gonna have to watch the video again though... I was sort of "dumbstruck" that he actually reviewed the game.
Actually, I think it goes further than that:

Even if you go back and kill yourself the time-line's still fucked, with the epilogue implying some kind of "good" Soviet rule of the world, with statues of that scientist, and you on a mission to the island but with Russian names like "Red Fleet" replacing the American ones. The video after the credits shows what the real anomaly was, it was Kathryn sent back in the ship wreckage who leaves that note in the book.

Incidentally I chose the ending where you kill both, I shot one guy and thought "hold on, my crosshairs are still red!" *BANG* It's actually my favourite ending of the three.

Anyway, there was "bullet-time", albeit with only one gun, the seeker. Firing a gun slow-mo around a corner into a soldier's groin never got old.
Wow, I'm a bit flattered that your first post was quoting me. ^^
And yeah, there was some difference, that's why I wrote "maybe". And I didn't really "get" what happened with Kathryn and the stuff...
Incidentally I did the same thing you did. "hmm crosshair still red?" I actually thought you were supposed to do that... :p

EDIT: [HEADING=1]WELCOME![/HEADING]
Haha, thanks. First time poster, long time ZP watcher and lurker :). I still don't really fully get the Kathryn stuff, the time-line is so convoluted, but I think she must be the anomaly.

I think this is the first time I've actually played a game before Yahtzee's done a review of it.

Edit: meant long time ZP watcher and lurker, oops.
 

Agent_PoRK

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Jan 4, 2009
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i really hate people who dislike time travel plot lines because of there complexity, its almost seems like they are trying not to get it and be stupid cock sucking idiots. I also hate people who hate history, for they are also trying to be idiots, but more in the way blonds are stupid.
 

Mangue Surfer

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May 29, 2010
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In fact the game rip... I mean "homages" HL, Bioshock and FEAR.
Yes, is inferior than they but still is good. At least is better than the COD/Halo clones out there.
 

Timzilla

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Mar 26, 2010
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Anyone else find it rather insulting that Yahtzee will tear down a game and just under the review they tell you where you can buy that same game?
 

SAMAS

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Aug 27, 2009
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Pretty strong first half, though what he was saying he wanted to do with the Revert is why they did what they did with it. The second half was pretty meh.
 

TheYellowCellPhone

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Sep 26, 2009
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Wow, six straight probations/suspensions. That's a new record.

And there's something about tossing a baby with a hand grenade at enemies that makes me want to get a shrink.
 

ewhac

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Sep 2, 2009
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Since we're talking about plot twists, I recently completed BioShock for the first time, and there was a plot twist in the game that was very notable for its absence:

So after the big reveal that Atlas is really Fontaine, and you've been his genetically-engineered droid the whole time, you go after him for Revenge(TM). Well, about halfway through that part of the game, I suspected I was being set up for another plot twist -- that the guy you putted to death in Ryan's office was not really Ryan.

Fontaine clearly offended Ryan's objectivist "sensibilities," and would have liked nothing more than to see him removed from his masterwork, but his efforts to do so up to that point had failed. Also, the idea that a guy who could design and build a metropolis at the bottom of the Atlantic would be stupid enough to think that force of personality and personal conviction alone would stop you from sand-wedging his skull, shall we say, strained credibility. It occurred to me that, since bioethics had basically been tossed out the window (figuratively speaking; opening the windows is a bad idea in Rapture), Ryan would create a genetic clone of himself for the express purpose of being killed by whatever agency Fontaine had crufted together. Fontaine, thinking himself victorious, would then emerge in the open, where Ryan could then re-emerge and they could have a proper showdown.

And this is what I thought I was being set up for -- that Ryan would pop out of a closet somewhere and say, "Thanks ever so much for bringing this guy in the open," and you'd be placed in the position of having to choose between killing Fontaine, Ryan, or both.

But it didn't happen. It was just a garden-variety boss battle, with a marginal cinematic at the end.
 

Holy_Handgrenade

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Feb 16, 2009
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Anyone have any idea what the refrence to Blackburn was about?

The only reason I was intrigued was because I am from Burnley there footballing rivals.
 

esliang

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Nov 18, 2009
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This one was fantastic. Leave it to Yahtzee to point out that these kinds of shooters are all the same...and that plot twists really have gotten that bad.
 

T8B95

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Jul 8, 2010
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Wasn't this game released like two years ago? Is this another retro review?
 

griffinith

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Nov 12, 2008
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Wow, I must have some pretty decent clairvoyance myself, just the other day I was playing Singularity at work and thinking "I think Yahtzee will rip on this game in his next review. It has all of his favorite points to rip on. It's too easy, it has gimmicks, and it blatantly rips off at least 2 other good games, this sounds too perfect for him to just go into, state the obvious, point out the lack of making people into babies, reanimating the dead, the number of staircases and chalkboards that are all imbued with Mysterious element Egg (and why every soldier can be aged.. why are they all imbued with this element?!)

Despite all that, I'm really enjoying the game because it has proper pacing and storytelling. In the interest of keeping this short, I'll sum it all up.

Enemies: Good, varied, damned annoying.
Weapons: Varies from poor to amazing, but I like the selection.
Areas: Dark and creepy in the present, Bright and colorful in the past, whatever.
Story: Doesn't work in many ways, but that's just nitpicking.
Support Characters: Aren't babysitting missions waiting to happen. They take care of themselves! (mostly.)
Favorite point not mentioned: The first person view mini cut scenes, they were done very well.
Gameplay: Smooth, interesting, and not sure if it wants to be action or horror. The amount of crap on the ground is clearly pointing to action, but some of the enemies are trying so hard to be scary. The puzzles may get you at first, but after that they are all copy paste.
Sounds/Music: No complaints.

EDIT: If I could add anything into the game, I would add in the chance to get off the linear storyline path (in a Disgaea kind of way) and "finish" the game at chapter one because you chose not to help someone. And having alternate paths to follow if you allowed certain events in the past to happen. Plotholes are always going to abound when some "world domination time changing event" takes place, so why not just get crazy with it?
 

bushwhacker2k

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Jan 27, 2009
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T8B95 said:
Wasn't this game released like two years ago? Is this another retro review?
1) It was released in late June for Europe and North America.
2) Reminding you or letting you know if you forgot or haven't seen certain Yahtzee reviews: games tend to be released later in Australia than in other bigger continents.
 

DarkhoIlow

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Dec 31, 2009
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Although a rather short review compared to other ones,I enjoyed it.

I finished the game and liked it,even with it's similarities to Bioshock.
 

lordwally

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Apr 28, 2010
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You know, element 99 isn't some big mystery. It's called Einsteinium. It's a legit element on the periodic table. It's a synthetic metallic element that's highly radioactive. It's created by sticking Plutonium in a reactor for several years like cheese. Why did they pick that? If they wanted to be original and realistic, they should've chosen element 118 which, if created, would be the first man made completely stable element.
 

griffinith

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Nov 12, 2008
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lordwally said:
element 118 which, if created, would be the first man made completely stable element.
Isn't that the element which allows for UFOs to work properly and other such conspiracy theories?