SINGULARITY

What the game says it is: Learn the truth about a massive cover up of the catastrophic Singularity, an event tbat fractures time itself and threatens the world as we know it.

What the game actually is: A first person action shooter where you are an American solider investigating an island in the former Soviet union. Unknown to the USA, an event "The Singularity" has occurred on this island and due to this event there are changes to the very fabric of history.

Graphic and sound: The graphic and sound on this game are excellent.

How game play was: The game play is pretty straight forward until you get the time manipulation device (TMD), then it becomes more complicated with certain environmental puzzles requiring specific tricks to get past.

The good: The whole time travel story elements and the story in general is pretty well done. There are three different endings and are defiantly worth it as long as you keep your last save you can do all three without going through the game again but even if you did not keep the save they would be worth the time. Figuring out how to use the TMD wasn't bad and more often then not it was worth the effort.

The bad: Some of the battles can be frustrating with the bosses, each requires a specific way to defeat                        which isn't always immediately obvious.

The ugly: You often find yourself without ammo at the worst possible times and your knife melee weapon doesn't seem to do much at all to your mutated enemies.

Overall: This game is enjoyable, dripping with time travel goodness. The action combat isn't too bad while the hard parts aren't overly frustratingly so. The game play,  graphics and storyline work well together, making it a game that I will play over and over again every month or so. I wish there was a sequel although I am unsure of how one could have been successfully pulled off.

PTSD: 6

Why I rated it: There is a lot of shooting and explosions. You play a solider, early on you deal with a school of dead children although you do not see them die and no mutated children attack you, it can be disturbing due to seeing the dead bodies of kids. You have some semi-realistic weaponry and occasionally fight Soviet soldiers. Violance blood and gore throughout and some strange flash back imagery of past events your character didn't live through intruding upon the present.

HOMEFRONT

What the game says it is: A first person shooter set in America that has become a third world country and taken over by Korea. 

What the game actually is: A first person shooter with a bit of a story behind how the USA became the downtrodden battle field for a resistance moment against Korean troops that occupy the land.

Graphic and sound: The graphics and sound are pretty good with a gritty realistic look to things such as people and weapons.

How game play was: The game play was good with the controls being fairly straight forward the subject matter was also. It was hard for me to get through the games storyline due to the subject matter.

The good: The games controls were not hard to learn while the enemy was still hard to overcome.

The bad: The story focuses more on one of the computer controlled characters then on you.

The ugly: The helicopter part was more difficult and lengthy then it was enjoyable.

Overall: It is a good game although I was disappointed that by the time i got my hands on it the multiplayer was useless because there was no one online to play it. 

PTSD rating: 9

Why I rated: I would have to rate this game a 9 for the subject matter and the mass grave you hide in pretending you're dead to the semi-realistic weapons and the deaths of civilians along with blood and gore throughout the game. 

I ended up selling this game back to gamestop so that I could pick a different game that might not trigger my PTSD like this one did. When I purchased it I didn't think it would effect me like it did. It ended up bringing up too many bad images and memories from my time in Iraq.