History VideoGame / Singularity

* ArtisticLicenseChemistry: The name "E99" apparently literally means that it is the element with 99 protons in its nucleus, as you can find periodic tables in the game with E99 occupying that slot. In reality this element is called Einsteinium. It has very few practical applications, the most prevalent use being as a component in creating other transuranic elements. On the other hand, replacing such an obscure element means it does not clash badly with reality.

A 2010 first-person shooter most notable for being the final single-player game made by the illustrious Raven Software, before Activision essentially folded them into the ''Call of Duty'' development team.

** The important month and year in the past you time-travel to is [[Film/BackToTheFuture November 1955]]. One of the wall scrawls is an illustration of the timeline, drawn as an actual line, with labeled tangents showing where the alterations occur like the one Doc Brown draws in ''Back to the Future 2.''

* AbnormalAmmo: Most of the weapons use "normal" rounds (i.e. bullets, railgun spikes, rockets) that you find packets of around the island. Not so with the [[GatlingGood Gatling Gun]]. The reload animation shows that you replace a small E99 device on top of it, instead of loading new bullets. The Developer's Blog on the game's homepage has revealed how this works: The E99 device actually turns time backward once you install it, letting you fire the same [[invoked]][[FridgeBrilliance cartridges all over again]]. It doesn't quite explain if those bullets [[FridgeLogic leave the dead bodies of your foes]] or simply appear out of nowhere, though.

* TranslationConvention: Sort of. We see lots of signs that are posted in both Russian ''and'' English, something that would be odd for 1950s Russia to do, and most of the speaking characters (except soldiers gunning for you) speak in Russian-accented English. [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign Renko is not a Russian name, but it is a real surname.]] The fact that it ends in "ko" means that it's most likely Ukrainian. While the Ukrainian Language is distinct from the Russian Language, the two are quite close, holding a high degree of mutual intelligibility, but they are not completely mutually intelligible. Given his Ukrainian Surname, it's not at all Renko at least knows Ukrainian and at least some Russian. This also justifies why some things are translated while others are not. If you were going to send commandos to investigate the site of a possible nuclear accident probably associated with an old secret Soviet lab, it makes sense that you would pick men who can read Russian. It would be a terrible shame for somebody to get killed or make the problem worse because they couldn't understand the signs that read DANGER[[note]]Опасно[[/note]], after all.

* GatlingGood: You are gonna want to [[CargoShip make sweet love]] to that Autocannon...

* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: [[spoiler:Saving a man from burning to death inadvertently causes a Soviet takeover of the world.]]

* AbnormalAmmo: Most of the weapons use "normal" rounds (i.e. bullets, railgun spikes, rockets) that you find packets of around the island. Not so with the [[GatlingGood Gatling Gun]]. The reload animation shows that you replace a small E99 device on top of it, instead of loading new bullets. The Developer's Blog on the game's homepage has revealed how this works: The E99 device actually turns time backward once you install it, letting you fire the same [[FridgeBrilliance cartridges all over again]]. It doesn't quite explain if those bullets [[FridgeLogic leave the dead bodies of your foes]] or simply appear out of nowhere, though.

* AmbiguouslyEvil: Downplayed with [[spoiler:Dr. Barisov]], as [[spoiler:he's]] almost certainly not a malicious individual. [[spoiler:He]] spends the whole game assisting Renko with his efforts to restore the present and is utterly dedicated to opposing Demichev's regime and undoing the harm he's caused. However, [[spoiler:in his ending, it appears he ended up using the TMD from Renko's body to accelerate the development of E99 technology and TakeOverTheWorld himself.]] It's still not entirely clear where [[spoiler:Barisov]] lies on the morality spectrum since it isn't clear whether this was [[AllAcordingToPlan the intended result from the beginning]] or if [[spoiler:he simply failed to predict how his past self would react to finding the device.]] Given how Devlin reacts to [[spoiler:his giant statue]], it's entirely possible [[spoiler:Barisov is a benevolent ruler]] as well.

* ApocalypticLog: These are practically everywhere, from the labs to the ''school''; almost ''everyone'' on the island had a reel-to-reel recorder and held an audio-log. One might wonder why is there a recording of little children talking about their belly-aches in a school, or why there is a reel-to-reel recording of a scared little girl in the washroom, but in a game about a Soviet black hole...