For the past two days, I've been watching Ben beat himself up emotionally over something simple. Almost every five minutes, I'd hear him say, "You don't DO that!" as loud as he can without waking up any of the apartments around him as he dies on screen, and, from the sound of it, a little inside. Today, it came to a point that I swear I was going to see him, a short but fairly lean (maybe a bit of a gut, but who cares?) Army man, cry. Sure, we bot may have had some teary eyes during Toy Story 3, but this... this is different.
I'm fairly laid back, so when I get angry watching someone die from bad programming in a game, you know the guys behind to game really dropped the ball. What's more is that Ben and I agreed on this before it came out: Singularity may be the sleeper hit of the summer. Now, we both agree that it needs to get off the shelves, be fixed, then released.
The first problem is that on normal difficulty, enemies shouldn't be doing a third health damage. Three hits, you're dead in an FPS? On level two?! Gimme a break! Watching this game reminded me of watching a child try to play Demons' Souls, screaming "It's not fair! I know I killed that guy!" Let alone what a five year old was doing playing that game (then again, it could be worse), I can say this about Demons' Souls: It was hard as hell, but it was still fair. Enemies did realistic damage, and it didn't lead you on. The game was known for its difficulty. With Singularity, the game starts off extremely easy, and goes into "fight a room full of guys that take a whole magazine (thanks to Ben for letting me know the real term) to kill" territory in the second level. Without giving you enough ammo to kill all of them.
It gets worse. After 30 assault rifle shots, maybe (if you're really lucky) the guy's dead. Two stabs with a knife, he is dead. Your knife if more powerful than a gun? By the time you realize this, they take your knife away and give you a weaker melee attack. Oh! But this one can shift the time traveling enemies back to your time, and slow them down to keep the swarms at bey! Too bad the only tell this after you manage to defeat a swarm.
Let's talk character design for a second. These annoying blue guys, "Zeks," look like blue midget wrestlers. Some of them have a head growing out of their heads. The picture of the Boglin above is a vast improvement over the "Zeks" designs. Do you want to know why? Because, at least if I was fighting that I wouldn't be so busy laughing my butt off at the fact that I seem to been shooting a blue midget version of Sloth. Though this game does make me afraid of "Smurfs" again. ...never again.
As small as the enemies are, you can jump over them at times. Unless you're right above them, then an invisible wall keeps you from moving. But, lets talk about the even smaller guys: Ticks. I hated ticks before, but these little bugs have nothing on the diseased bloodsuckers. These explode and kill you in two hits at most. Even at full health. Keep in mind that you have to reload the device you have to change time more often than you do your gun. Also keep in mind that the developers decided to make most of the guns inaccurate (good luck getting a headshot while zoomed in with the sniper rifle), underpowered (read above about the assault rifle) or way too powerful (shotgun... need I say more?). The weapons that are supposed to be super powered and accurate rarely work properly, or the enemies seem to shrug off the damage like Marvin the Paranoid Android would a compliment.
Where Ben stopped last night was pretty much the breaking point for the game. A blurb popped up saying to slow the creature down to shoot it. Ben does. It slows him down, and the creature stays at the same speed. From an outsider's view, it seems like the programmer forgot to put that part of the programming code in. That, or the strategy is pure rubbish. Or, the more likely scenario, the game is pure rubbish.
I may end up seeing more of this crapfest, but I'm not getting my hopes up for it anymore. If you want a good example of how not to create a game, look this up. But, if you're a programmer, and you have a cool concept for a game, make sure to do it right. Seriously, we're all aloud to make mistakes (Mass Effect was fantastic, but it had some serious flaws), but when the game itself is a mistake, that is unacceptable.
- Alexis
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