When Singularity was announced and unveiled in an issue of Game Informer a few weeks ago, one thought immediately popped into my head: Do we really need another TimeShift already? As anyone who played through that game probably knows, there's a big difference between promising the ability to control time and actually delivering something that doesn't just feel like a gimmick. With that in mind, it's pretty safe to say that I was skeptical heading into my Singularity demo at the annual D.I.C.E Summit yesterday. After meeting Brian Raffel, Raven Software's founder and studio head, we jumped right into the demo, and it was immediately apparent that I had severely underestimated the game. Not only is Singularity not just another TimeShift, it looks like it could be one of the most unique shooters in years, incorporating the time controls so they don't just feel like a gimmick.

Before I launch into the reasons why Singularity is now a major blip on my radar, let's take a brief look at the game's story. You'll play as Nate Ranko, a recon pilot who's sent on a flyover mission to Russia in 2010. Something happens that causes Nate's plane to crash, and he finds himself on a seemingly deserted island that houses a decrepit military base. Apparently the Russkies had been experimenting with a powerful substance called Element 99, and Nate comes across what the developers are calling a "Time Manipulation Device," which uses the mysterious element to, you guessed it, allow the wearer to manipulate time. Unfortunately for Nate, the island isn't as deserted as he initially thought, and it's not long before he's doing battle with the Soviet forces that occupy it... both in the present day and the 1950s. You'll actually spend a chunk of your time back in the '50s, unlocking the secrets of the island while trying to avoid capture or death at the hands of the Russians.

Unlike TimeShift, which simply allowed you to reverse or stop time, Singularity will actually allow you to manipulate time in a much deeper way, which looks like it should lead to much more interesting scenarios. For instance, if you find a rusted-out barrel on the ground, you can either revert it to its 1950s state (apparently they had explosive barrels even then!) or move it forward in time to break it down completely. When using the time powers on an enemy (in the Xbox 360 version, the left and right bumpers control backward and forward, respectively), you can either revert them to a primordial creature that will attack other enemies, or cause them to decay right in front of your eyes, killing them instantly.

That's all simplifying things quite a bit, as we saw dozens of instances that the time powers could be used in combat. When the demo player came up to an area in which enemies were firing at him from a balcony, he decided to decay the struts holding it up rather than try to shoot them, which lead to them plunging to their deaths. You'll also be able to use "chronostasis," which is similar to the gravity gun in Half-Life 2, except it will also freeze the object you grab in time. So, if an enemy tosses a grenade at you, it can be grabbed out of the air and held without risk of explosion. Of course, not everything in the world can be manipulated, so you'll be able to use a "ping" to make changeable objects highlighted.

While the TMD certainly makes combat a lot more interesting, it's the puzzles that really got me excited. You'll come across a bunch of different scenarios in which you'll have to figure out how to use your time powers in order to progress, from simple ones like repairing a bridge by reverting it to its previous state to tougher ones that force you to actually go back in time to the 1950s to change something. These can either be done by releasing a "time wave" that will sweep over the entire area, essentially reverting it all to its previous state (including adding new, 1950s era enemies that will behave differently than their 2010 counterparts) or by way of "time rifts" that can be opened temporarily to allow you to make quick changes to the past.

In addition to the standard human enemies, you'll also have to deal with some creatures that have been mutated by the presence of Element 99. Phase Ticks will appear out of growths on the walls from time to time, and can turn foes into their aforementioned primordial states simply by vomiting on them. They can be used as weapons if you use your chronostasis carefully, although your foes will attempt to use them against you as well. Then there are the Zeks, humanoid enemies that can actually phase in and out of time. You'll see their ghostly shadows moving around, but you can't actually shoot them until they are solid. We also had a chance to check out one of the game's massive bosses, a towering creature that attacked a train on which Nate was riding. The scale is similar to the foes seen in Resistance 2, and we'll be interested to see how you're actually expected to take them down.

As I mentioned, I didn't have particularly high hopes heading into my Singularity demo, but I've since seen the light. While the gun combat is fairly standard for the genre, the time controls add multiple layers of depth on top of it. The developers fit a lot of stuff into the demo, and there were times that it was tough to really wrap my head around what was going on. There seems to be, for lack of a better term, a lot of mindf***ing going on in the game, so I'm hopeful that Singularity will be a thinking gamer's shooter, not just a gimmicky one.

Do not let Activision bury Singularity. It's fantastic and you need to play it

Don't blame yourself for not knowing about Raven's brilliant shooter. Let us tell you about it

The chances are you’ve already forgotten that Raven Software's Singularity exists. To honest, I’ve only remained aware of it because a notorious press demo last year, which portrayed it as a BioShock rip-off so shameless that myself and a colleague nearly passed out with disbelief.

Since then, every screenshot has seemed to confirm my incredulous reaction, and Activision has done a grand slice of bugger all to promote the game to us. No preview events. No preview code sent to the office. Barely a peep about it at all. It’s not even on the front page of Activision’s website. And it’s out today in Europe and on Tuesday in the US. Naturally, I assumed it was a clunker.

But then earlier this week I got to play it, and found out that it’s fantastic, inventive, refreshing, brutal, and frankly, the most fun I’ve had with an FPS in a long time. You need to know about it. So I'm telling you about it.

Why you don’t know about it

I don’t blame you if you’re not aware of the game. Like I said, it’s had nothing in the way of promotion, and images like the one above make it look like a me-too BioShock clone too cynical for even God himself to imagine. With no direct experience of the game, we were left with that (deeply false) impression right up until this week. But it’s an impression that only relates to the tiniest bit of Singularity’s surface gloss. There’s immensely more going on in this game, and it’s all very, very good.

Why it’s brilliant

There’s a massive irony with Singularity that I have to get out of the way right now. The fact is that while it doesn’t play like BioShock at all, it absolutely is a game made up of borrowed elements. But the ideas it chooses to take, and the skill and imagination with which they’re combined, make it not a shameless retread, but a gleefully fresh cocktail of the FPS genre’s disparate best bits, blended to a brand new, incredibly tasty flavour.

A small dash of BioShock’s visuals and faded ‘50s kitsch. A big splash of Half-Life 2’s fast-flowing, creative combat and savvy environmental puzzling. Squeeze in a wedge of F.E.A.R.’s time-bending spectacle and crush in some breathlessly paced variety and set-pieces, and you have not only an incredibly hackneyed games journalism cliché, but a game that simultaneously pays tribute to and adds to the best moments in first-person shooting to date.

In this age of increasingly dull pseudo-realistic military shooters and overly-orchestrated, plodding, shooting-gallery-style combat, Raven’s game is an exhilarating kick up the arse to the days before Call of Duty became everyone’s standard shooter model. It has a monstrously infectious ‘more is more’ philosophy to gameplay mechanics. It’s the kind of game that lets you kill 20 different enemies 20 different ways in under a minute, via creative combinations of its cleverly complimenting weapons and gadgets.

You can slow down time for individual enemies, leaving everything else (including yourself) running at full speed. You can throw time dilation bubbles into the combat area, turning bad guys into frozen sitting ducks. You can pump them full of bullets, then deactivate the bubble and watch as every shot catches up at the same time. You can use that same bubble as a shield, to slow down incoming fire.

You can rapidly age enemies to death. You can devolve them into zombies and let them do the work for you. You can shockwave them into the air. You can shockwave them into the air, freeze them in time, then devolve them into zombies, and unfreeze them just as one of their friends gets close. Oh, and did I mention that you also have a gravity gun? And a sniper rifle with bullets you can steer manually? And a railgun that works like Gears of War’s Torque Bow? And that every skirmish area is a wide, multi-levelled playground of tactical angles of attack, designed to bring out every ounce of creative violence in your body?

If you’re feverishly thinking ‘Half-Life 2’ here, you’re right. Singularity is the first non-Valve FPS in years that has come close to evoking that particular brand of clever, inventive, fast-flowing brutality known as ‘Going Gordon Freeman on someone’s ass’. And it has a remarkably good, time-zone-hopping storyline as well, which manages to be high-concept and engaging, while remaining pacey and fun. Even if it does shamelessly borrow a couple of H-L2’s character archetypes along the way.

But the shamelessness of Singularity’s influences really doesn’t matter, however obvious they are to a genre-savvy FPS player. In fact they’re part of the fun. It’s one big mega-mix love-in that brings together the previously separated elements of so many games you love and makes them work cohesively together for the first time. So well in fact, that it almost makes them feel completely new. Don’t let mystifying lack of fanfare put you off. It’s an absolute stormer and you need to give it your time.