Raven’s latest first-person shooter, Singularity, snuck onto store shelves recently without much fanfare, mere weeks after an E3 event that was more exciting than what we’ve become accustomed to. Both of these conditions aren’t really conducive to wild, out-of-control awareness for a brand new game, let alone a brand new intellectual property (IP) with a premise that’s a little difficult to explain.

The popular marketing theory goes that it’s more risky to sink support and advertising currency into a new and unproven videogame franchise (or any franchise) for the simple fact that it’s unproven. There’s no frame of reference for success that people can point to and say “X number of currency spent on marketing will result in X number of units sold, and therefore X number of currency in return on the marketing investment.”

With a franchise such as, oh I don’t know, Call of Duty, or World of Warcraft or StarCraft, a company such as Activision Blizzard would happily sink millions of currency into letting the world know that the next iteration of the franchise is on the way. But a game like Singularity?

A new, unproven IP? Despite the legacy and heritage of a developer such as Raven behind the title? No-one except the hardcore knew this game had even arrived, and it’s a shame, too, because of all the games Activision Blizzard could have been spending its money on marketing to the world, Singularity should have been one of them.

Call of Duty and World of Warcraft can, to a certain extent, sell themselves, but with a genuinely complex and intriguing story and an interesting (if a little contrived) time manipulation gameplay mechanic at its core, Singularity needed (and still needs) a little marketing boost to let gamers know what this title is all about.

Let me tell you what this title is all about.

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of Singularity.

Activision and Raven’s time-bending first-person shooter, Singularity, is now available in the UK, and releases next week in the US on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, and even though we’ve seen quite a bit about the singleplayer portion of the game, with the release of this new trailer, this is the first we’ve heard of the multiplayer segment.

Seemingly containing no elements of the campaign’s time-manipulation abilities, the multiplayer component of Singularity will see two different sides (comprising vastly different beast-like creatures and sinister soldiers) fighting for control of territory.

The trailer below details what kinds of creatures and soldiers are available, and what their specific abilities are, in what could be an entertaining diversion from the main campaign:

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The release date draws nearer for Raven and Activision’s first-person shooter, Singularity, a game that equips you with a device capable of many different abilities – the manipulation of time being one of them.

Another ability revealed in this latest trailer for the game is simply called ‘Impulse,’ and while its base function is to release a massive amount of energy to push objects and enemies around (and in some cases destroy them), it also serves to bring… ‘creatures’ into your plane of existence, so as to better shoot those ‘creatures’ in the face.

You can watch the Impulse ability in full force in a new trailer for Singularity below:

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Activision has released a new trailer for their upcoming first-person shooter, Singularity, this time giving us a closer glimpse at how the Deadlock ability will allow players to slow the momentum of moving objects and enemies on the battlefield.

Watch the new time-bending trailer below or flip through our previous coverage to find out more about the game before it releases on the 29th of June in the US.

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Over the last few months, has the thought once entered your mind, “Whatever happened to that Raven/Activision first-person shooter, Singularity?”

If it has, then this newly released trailer for the time-bending game will be able to answer that question (yes, it’s still coming out), as well as questions about when it’s going to be released (June 29th in the US, presumably July 2nd in Europe) and what you actually do in the game (shoot and manipulate time).

Watch the new Singularity trailer below:

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In their second fiscal quarter financial report, Activision Blizzard revealed that revenue for the period ended June 30th reached $1.04 billion, ahead of previous estimates of $1 billion, as well the fact that the company has a bevy of new games in development, but were also forced to reveal that the release of StarCraft II was being moved into the first half of calendar year 2010.

Driving the excellent performance for the second quarter, however, were titles such as Prototype, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Continued strong sales of entries to the Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft and Call of Duty franchises also contributed to the better than expected quarterly revenue.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick also announced 2.8 percentage points of market share growth in North America and Europe across all platforms, rising to 12.7 percent over 9.9 percent last year. Kotick also said that, according to NPD, Chart-Track and Gfk sales tracking data, Activision Blizzard was the number one third-party console and handheld software publisher in North America during the quarter.

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Singularity, a first-person shooter from the capable developers over at Raven, is all about manipulating time, but not in the way you would think.

You can’t slow time down, reverse it or speed it up as in other games, but instead you’re able to manipulate individual objects in the game and either speed up their aging process, or reverse that same aging process, in order to complete puzzles or simply get through a combat area, as shown in the video below:

It’s an interesting concept, and a slight twist on the usual time manipulation we’ve seen in other games (Max Payne, FEAR, Timeshift et al), which surely opens up a few new avenues in which to approach any given situation.

Hopefully it doesn’t end up all gimmicky, as was the landscape manipulating mechanic in Fracture. Singularity is expected to release on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC later this year.

During their earnings call yesterday, Activision Blizzard revealed their intended release line-up for 2009, including new Guitar Hero games, new franchises and new entries to old franchises.

To start, the company intends to release a bevy of Guitar Hero (and just plain Hero) titles this year, including the already announced Guitar Hero: Metallica, a new DS title called Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits, the possibility (and inevitability) of something along the lines of Guitar Hero: World Tour 2, as well as their DJ-inspired title, DJ Hero.

The Blizzard portion of the company has dedicated itself to releasing one ‘frontline’ title per year, although it isn’t yet clear whether 2009’s frontline title from Blizzard will be Starcraft 2, Diablo III or perhaps another World of Warcraft expansion.

As a result of poorer than expected sales for James Bond: Quantum of Solace, the company will be moving the release of the next entry into the James Bond series of games to 2010, to avoid Activision Blizzard’s own titles cannibalizing each other’s sales, as they believed happened with the release of Call of Duty: World at War in a similar timeframe to Quantum of Solace.

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