In world cinema, the topic of time travel is processed for a long time and at a very definite angle: almost everything, starting from “back to the future” and ending with the “butterfly effect”, talk about what terrible consequences can lead to violations of the space-time continuum. The course of history is violated, the life of entire civilizations is changing, and the grief traveler itself remains disabled at best.
In video games, the situation is completely different: modern developers are still reveling in the very opportunity to manipulate time, and the “safety precautions” are thought last. Recently, I tried to seriously speak on this topic Braid , But many players were so passionate about the struggle against angry bunches and killer rabbits that they safely missed all the moral.
In addition to the game of Jonathan Blow, I recall only weak The Darkest of Days , And from the really chic there is only Chrono Trigger , and he has already hit for fifteen years. Therefore, we want to turn to Singularity Particular attention: in this game, careless circulation over time can accidentally lead to the celebration of communism on the scale of a separate planet.
Mendeleev periodic table
It all starts with the fact that a group of American special forces sets off to visit an abandoned island with the romantic name “hard labor-12”, in which in the fifties of the last century, just at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union conducted secret experiments.
The fact is that the island turned out to be the only deposit of the mysterious element E99 in the world, which is a source of enormous energy. As it turned out later, the E99 has a whole set of remarkable for the bright communist future properties: in small doses, it can make people stronger and more aggressive, and most importantly – easily moves objects in time. Imagine what horizons opened in front of the Red Army? No nuclear missiles are now scary to her now, because it became possible to turn to the ashes on the approach. But the plans remained plans: one fine day the next planned experiment got out of control, something loudly jerked, half of the inhabitants of the island turned into monsters and ate with giblets the second half. The island became unsuitable for life, the project was closed and about everything, as usual, quickly forgotten.
Our days. The helicopter with the American special forces falls into the indignation of the spatio-temporal continuum and falls just in the area of the Kutorgi-12 distribution point. The next fifteen minutes you will consider dozens of attributes of the life of a simple Soviet man: a monument to Stalin, Lenin’s busts, a cast Soviet coat of arms over the front door, red stretching with the inscription “Glory of the CPSU”, as well as scientific and educational films about the decaying capitalism and the huge benefits of the Soviet science.
And then suddenly the unusual happens: a wave flashes along the island, and our hero is in the distant past, a few seconds after that very terrible accident. The fire is raging, people scream, and some man is about to fall into a burning hole and will certainly die. Nathaniel Renko (the name of the protagonist), of course, saves a person at the same moment as in the series “Quantum Leap”, moves in time – back in 2010.
And here the troubles begin: https://monopoly-gb-casino.co.uk/ the rescued was one of the main researchers of the E99 element. After your intervention, he brought the experiment to the end, the USSR defeated the Cold War, and now all the people of the globe rise at six in the morning to make gymnastics to the sounds of the Soviet anthem and eat a portion of the good old boiled beetroot. The rescued scientist (someone Demichev), meanwhile, replaced the white robe to the tunic and fur cape and, in this form, clearly not without pleasure rules the world. Now you have to fix everything.
It is amazing that with such a plot, all action does not turn into a first -person Red Alert. Funny moments, of course, are found: one day, for example, you will almost crush the huge bronze head of the leader of the world proletariat. And the traditional explosive barrels of red color in this game look especially colorful thanks to the Serpas and the Hammer and the inscription “USSR” depicted on them.
But in general, the “hard labor” turned out to be a rather gloomy reflection of the Soviet era. Without errors (some of them were put into the subtitles of the article) and there were no intentional jokes, but there is no talk of any “cranberry” comedy. Those who still found our Soviet past will probably be a little more interesting than those who were born later. Of course, it is easy to notice that in Soviet culture, Western developers understand poorly (well, where did you see the “Office building” sign in the USSR?), and specifically for the players there, many posters and signs for some reason duplicate in English. Nevertheless, it is clear that the developers tried to convey the spirit of that era. This is one of the features of Singularity: for some time it is simply pleasant to look at it, noting small details and touching the next agitable with the inscription “Secrets harm. Silent!".
Something familiar
Singularity's main source of inspiration is Bioshock. But if you look more carefully, you can notice a lot of interesting borrowings. Here are some of them.
Anyone who played Half-Life 2: Episode 1 learns this picture. A tower with a pillar of energy and a funnel – a spilled citadel in its last moments. Luke is opened by Dr. Kleiner, trying to correct the situation caused by his invention. Katherine did not get into the frame, the local version of Alix. She sets out the hero in the same way, occasionally saves him or just gets confused under his feet. Renko, by the way, does not utter a word for the whole game.
Capitational Soviet videos about bourgeois, proletariat and the benefits of science are one to one on the advertisement of plasmids from Bioshock. The similarity is so amazing that you involuntarily think about whether the same artist painted them?
Remember the giant monsters from Lost Planet? Similar, true? If you think this is just a coincidence, pay attention to the vulnerable points that are ill to be painfully familiar orange. Moreover, when they burst, the orange slurry flows from them. There were still doubts?
And here is another familiar picture. Nothing reminds? Answer: Fallout 3. It is difficult to convey the similarity in a static picture, but believe me: the limbs from soldiers and monsters fly off exactly the same as in the game Bethesda SoftWorks. Moreover, even a situation is possible when you shoot at the body, and both hands fly off.
The inaugural day reactor
During the development of the game Raven Software They have repeatedly stated that they were going to move the Julesfish genre forward. If for the sake of this you were waiting for the game, then you can safely go about your business: the most original idea that the creators were able to realize is on Renko’s left hand and is called a mobile temporary converter (MVP). Theoretically, this is an omnipotent glove to manage time, however, it is impossible to age or rejuvenate thousands of objects, as the developers promised, you can use the device in strictly designated places.
But the gadget still turned out to be interesting. By wave of your hand, you can scatter stairs, boxes, safes, bridges, bizarre plants, tanks, barrels and other containers into a dusty. In the same way, all this can be restored in its original form: an explosive barrel, concrete overlap or cartridges filled with cartridges are materialized from a pile of garbage. The device also acts on living creatures, however, in different ways: ordinary people rot alive or turn into monsters, the monsters simply slow down.
The functionality of the miracle girl is not limited to this. In the course of the game, Renko will learn to attract and throw objects (including grenades and missiles), create a small sphere inside which the passage of time slows down, or simply send an energy wave in hand -to -hand combat, literally tearing weak opponents into parts.
On this hints of originality end and borrowings begin. Singularity absorbed the ideas of a huge number of games and films, but the main source of inspiration for the authors was undoubtedly BIOSHOCK. The similarity turned out to be practically portrait: the tank with an element E99 (Adam), MVP in its functions is similar to plasmids and feeds on special energy (EVE), sometimes you can find suitcases with improvements for weapons and formulas to strengthen the main character (toniki). All manipulations with upgrades occur at special mobile stations.
Gameplay and plot ideas are also weighted from the great game about Ar-Deco and reduced to scale, which have enough developers' imagination. Dozens of notes, diaries and audio recordings are scattered at the levels-both related to the plot and designed to show the lives of ordinary people on hardware-12. Well, when it comes to a fight, Singularity includes the same Bioshock Mini-Sendbox with a lesser budget. That is, enemies can be killed in a variety of ways: just shooting, hiding behind the boxes, catch the time, go to the hand -to -hand, throw back the addressee grenade or rocket, aging shelters, behind which enemies hide, turn a person into a monster and observe how he breaks off to some former colleagues, and then throw the whole honest company with red barrels, cylinders with gas or liquid nitrogen. In the latter case, the enemies freeze and scatter into fragments. Everything is like in Bioshock.
The corner of Nostradamus
The word "singularity", generally speaking, first appeared in astrophysicists. Singolarity is a point with an infinitely large mass and an infinitely small volume. In other words, this is the universe before the big explosion. But in the game this refers to another singularity – technological. This is an explosive, practically instant growth of technological progress, as a result of which humanity will either undergo significant changes (cyborgs, integration with machines, the possibility of copying consciousness), or will simply extract. The theory is based on the fact that the more the living creature knows, the faster and faster it develops. Remembering that just a hundred years ago, people still rode horses, and today they ride horses, but already in virtual reality, it is easy to believe in theory.
Scientists believe that technical singularity will happen between 2016 and 2020. Let's see what interesting events are planned at this time? Unless, of course, in 2012, we will not cover us the next end of the world.
2016-the Russian Bion-M Russian apparatus with living organisms on board will be launched into space, designed to help in preparing a manned flight to Mars. Rehearsals of the latter just recently began. Note: In the game Mass Effect, humanity has found prosemic technologies on Mars.
2016 – The world's first thermonuclear reactor ITER will be supposedly launched. This experiment is considered the second largest over the entire existence of mankind.
2016 – the Juno apparatus will enter the orbit of Jupiter and begin the study of the planet.
May 9, 2016 – Mercury will pass between the Earth and the Sun.
2017 – South Korea will fly into space for the first time.
2017 – The capitalization of Gazprom will reach a trillion dollars.
November 7, 2017 – in honor of the centenary of the October Revolution, a capsule will be opened with a message from the Communists of the future. In the same year the USSR will be restored and the European Union will enter it. At least, so believes Pavel Borodin, Secretary of State of the Union State of Russia and Belarus.
2018 – in China they will take a ban on the birth of more than one child in the family.
2019 – a supercomputer with a computing power of one exaflop will appear (this is a number with 18 zeros)
December 2019 – Three NASA astronauts will land on the moon.
2020-astronauts will land on the moon.
2020-Russia will begin to extract helium-3 on the moon.
.
2020 – NASA mission on Venus will begin to study the planet with a landing of an unmanned ship.
2020 – Technological singularity.
2021 – ???
Reserve room
Of course, Raven Software is not 2k Boston And not even 2k Marin , Therefore, there is no bio -shock scale in Singularity: there is not enough sense of style, attention to details, cultural subtext. Raven – honest artisans, they do not know how and do not want to fool the players with their heads and without any back thought, crowds of humane mutants over and over again after time. But even the direct borrowing of other people's ideas in combination with straight hands is enough to keep people behind the monitors at 2-3 pm (this is how much the game takes).
As in the case of Call of Duty , The recipe is simple: you just need not let the player come to your senses, once after time placing it in more and more wild situations. Once, for example, we stumbled upon a camera that could be "used". On the photo of the Soviet Polaroid, Renko appeared, closing his face with his hands from a bright flash, and … a monster behind him, bringing his paw to strike! The effect was amazing: after a panic jerk towards the claws of the monster flashed in a centimeter from Nathaniel, and the pulse returned to normal for several minutes.
The developers hold the pace of the narrative well, so Singularity leaves no chance to stop and start to grumble. Here Nathaniel finds a quick -fire machine gun and rushes a whirlwind behind a stolen fighting girlfriend, demolishing everything in his path. Here he is on Karachi sneaks past dozens of blind, but not deaf monsters. And in the next episode, jumps along the wagons of the train that was overturning to the abyss, screaming from the gigantic cross of the lizard and mantis. Raven Software has always been all right with a variety.
But do not forget that there is not a single ingenious game on the company's account. It also happened with Singularity in the same way. In it, shortcomings, obsolete things and just annoying moments flash in it every now and then. Everything seems to be noisy and bright, but sometimes you involuntarily pay attention to the plastic graph of not the first freshness, with deaf irritation you remember the need to be treated with first -aid kit (there is no automatic restoration of health) and decide ten times to solve the same puzzle in different decorations. Well, the most important drawback of Singularity is a very weak study of weapons and stupid opponents. For the weapon the most offensive: it is not heard, it is not felt, and shooting from it is completely uninteresting. There is no reverse return, there is no feeling of hitting enemies. It feels like a plastic Chinese machine in your hands. The situation is slightly corrected with the advent of a trivial machine gun, but the problem is not completely solved.
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But, despite all this, we are convinced – Singularity will appeal to everyone who believes that modern games have become too abstruse. Deprived of Ar-Deco, “crushing from jazz speakers” and references to Ain Rand, Bioshock in the editorial office from Raven Software remained an honest linear shooter about mutants and the Soviet Union. The mechanics work as it should, the bunch of “shooting plus special capabilities” does not give failures, and there is practically no irritating cranberries this time. Instead, a number of small, but annoying shortcomings, but the game, fortunately, ends before they manage to become a really serious problem. All this makes Singularity an ideal summer shooter: simple, fast and saturated. Glory to the CPSU!
TRANSLATION: There is especially nothing to say about the localization of Singularity. The text is translated. The actors are selected. The font is perfectly corresponded and so on. About half of the meaningful replicas in the columns are occupied by monologues of the closest ally of Renko, Dr. Barisov, so the fact that his voice is not annoying could save all the localization. But fortunately, everything else is done at about the same level. For a semi -seriously game like Singularity, this is more than enough.
Rehibition – no
Cool plot – no
Originality – no
Easy to master – yes
Evidence of expectations: 70%
Gameplay : 8
Graphics : 7
Sound and music : 7
Interface and management : 8
Localization rating: 2/3
Waited? Bioshock budget version in Soviet entourage and with the ability to move items in time. No revelations, but playing surprisingly cheerfully.
Mania rating: 7.5
"Fine"
