Nothing exhilarates quite like a refreshing dip in the 1950s, courtesy of Singularity’s intriguing time wave.

While the Time Manipulation Device in Raven Software’s Singularity allows you to manipulate objects between ages, the time wave manipulates you, forcing you to switch between present-day and the 1950s, when the titular catastrophe occurred. It’s an interesting mechanic, warping the player between two different eras of a single location. At least it looks compelling now. I’m sure that by the time we get to the end of the game we’ll be all, “Ho-hum, we’re being time displaced again.” We need to stop taking our temporal anomalies for granted.

In a prepared statement released to Kotaku today, Activision confirmed that Raven, a subsidiary of the company, had laid people off today, but declined to confirm or deny the number of people impacted.

“With the recent completion of both X-Men Origins Wolverine, based on the summer blockbuster movie, and Wolfenstein, the next chapter of the famed franchise, Raven Software is slightly reducing its workforce to better reflect the studios upcoming slate,” the Activision statement read.

But our sources tell us that the layoffs were the aftermath of an over-budget and under-performing Wolfenstein and the delay of upcoming time-shifting shooter Singluarity.

The delay for Singularity, which was pushed back from a holiday release to sometime next year, forced Raven Software to move members on the Wolverine team to the project to help reduce the delay, we are told.

The shift in personnel, increased expenses and lacklustre sales led Raven to drop from a three game team studio to a two game studio, our sources say.

“This game from the life experiences of the Raffel brothers,” said Brian Pass, senior producer at Activision. “They wanted to bring a lot of the things they experienced as young boys into the game.

“One of those was the cold war, the second big thing was science fiction and finally exploration. When they were young boys they loved to explore buildings in their town.”

In Singularity, you take on the role of Nate Ranco, an air force pilot sent to a secret Russian island to investigate the radiation coming from the location. Once he arrives, he discovers that the Russians were experimenting with an element that could manipulate time when something went wrong putting the whole island in a state of time flux.

Not exactly a recreation of young children exploring abandoned buildings, but it does a manage to capture a bit of that. That’s because as players work their way through the game the settings shift constantly between the island’s populated buildings of the 50s and the rusting buildings of present day.

There’s a lot of exploration, experimentation and fiddling with rusted bits of metal and broken machines to figure out how to make them work again.

And the Time Manipulation device, which Ranco discovers early on in the game is an important part of that. With the TMD, Ranco can send many of the objects on the island forward and backward in time. So if he uses it on a rusted out, dilapidated bridge, he can move it back in time until it’s new and usable. Or he can send a new bridge so far forward that it rusts and falls on enemies. Ranco can also use the device to age cover until it falls apart, or even age enemies until they turn to dust.

Sending an enemy back in time will turn them into a sub-human “revert” which will attack the first thing it sees, be it an enemy or you.

The TMD can also freeze an object in time and move it around, allowing you to use it like a gravity gun of sorts. Finally, the device allows you to send out a shockwave that can knock nearby enemies and object back.

All of these features and the inclusion of the raw time-shifting elements can make for some interesting strategies. You can, for instance, explode a container of the stuff to create a temporary bubble of frozen time space. It can then be detonated to obliterate everything inside of it.

Early on you also receive an E99 Revolver. The handgun uses the element to let you slow down time and manipulate the bullets in flight.

And it’s not all about fights, The TMD is used quite a bit to figure out how to get around things and achieve objectives. For instance, in one section of the game I played, I had to use the TMD to repair and raise a sunken ship. Because the effects of the TMD aren’t permanent, Ranco then had to run through the ship to achieve some goals as the ship rusted around him and started to sink down again.

The game, which was set for a Christmas release, won’t be coming out until next year. That’s because Activision didn’t want to crowd Modern Warfare 2’s release, they told me.

“With Singularity being a new IP we wanted to give it its own space,” Pass said.

Half a dozen comics and two new cartoons based on video games were announced at the show and plenty of comic books were unveiled as video games. The convention itself was host to more than 40 panels about video games.

Often these crossovers serve as a sort of table setter for an upcoming game, helping to set the stage, build up the characters and explore the world of a video game before it gets into the hands of gamers.

Before the original sci-fi role-playing game Mass Effect hit two years ago, Del Rey published the novel Mass Effect: Revelation. The prequel, penned by the game developer’s head writer, took place 35 years before the game.

This time around, the next Mass Effect game will be heralded by a comic book, not a novel. Mass Effect: Redemption is being written by Mac Walters, the person responsible for Mass Effect 2 script, and Walters promises it will change the way gamers look at the upcoming Xbox 360 sequel.

Upcoming Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 game Singularity is also getting a prequel in the form of a graphic novel. And long-lived franchise Prince of Persia is getting a graphic novel prequel for the upcoming movie based on the video games.

The shift from books to comic books to tell a story set in a video game universe shouldn’t be that surprising. Comic books, like video games, use both narrative art and dialog to tell a story. The two also have a very similar audience which could explain the virtual explosion of crossover titles in recent months.

While Dead Space Extraction will explore the world of the upcoming Wii-exclusive, it won’t be a prequel, according to Steve Papoutsis, executive producer of Dead Space Extraction.

“There is so much more to the Dead Space universe than we could ever fit into one game and we’re excited to be working with Image Comics again to extend the story in Dead Space Extraction,” he said. “(Illustrator) Ben (Templesmith) and (writer) Antony (Johnston) did such a tremendous job with the original comic, we can’t wait for fans to get their hands on this special issue.”

Other comic crossovers seem to be more about marketing than expanding the story. For instance, at last week’s convention Capcom gave away copies of a Spyborgs comic to promote the upcoming Wii game. And Sony Computer Entertainment announced a comic based on their popular God of War franchise.

The six-issues series, set to be released on a monthly schedule leading into the release of God of War III, was announced alongside a novel based on the game and a collectible copy of the anti-hero’s weapon: The Blades of Chaos.

Crossovers aren’t relegated to the pages of comics either, there were also two new cartoons announced at the show.

Halo Legends will be a set of animated shorts based on Microsoft and Bungie’s popular first-person shooter for the Xbox 360. The seven shorts will explore some of the fictional history of the game’s universe.

Dante’s Inferno, an action game based on the epic Italian poem, is also getting the cartoon treatment. The collection of six shorts, each created by a different studio and director, will show some of the untold moments of the video game on a DVD set to ship around the same time as the game.

Comic books and animated movies based on video games aren’t a new phenomenon. Gears of War, Resident Evil, World of Warcraft, even Sonic, all have their own comic books. But the past 18 months or so has seen a surge of interest in the pop-culture crossovers.

Perhaps that’s because of the increasingly mainstream role that comics and their offshoots are taking in pop culture. Once relegated to children, comics are now recognised as an important form of expression, something that can deal with big issues and reach a broad audience.

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The Comic-Con demo didn’t spend too much time focusing on Singularity’s sci-fi story line—probably for the best, given the noisy environment—instead dropping us about an hour and a half into the game. At this point, protagonist Nate Ranco already has the time shifting glove that gives Singularity its core mechanic, letting the player revert and age objects and enemies.

That mechanic comes in handy for puzzle solving and offensive attacks, making Singularity a more strategic, puzzle heavy shooter.

What Is It?
Singularity is a first-person shooter set on a mysterious island known as Katorga-12 home to a series of Russian experiments involving “Element 99,” the element that powers that time distorting glove Ranco wears.

What We Saw
We played through a 15 minute long segment, shooting bad guys, solving puzzles and watching some of the game’s time warping cinematics unfold. We experimented with Singularity’s time manipulation glove, played with the Chronolight—a device that lets players see objects that exist in different time periods, then pull them into Ranco’s present—and poked around with some of the game’s firearms.

How Far Along Is It?
The game was due to be released this Fall, but was pushed back to the first quarter of 2010. The playable demo was indicative of a mostly complete product, but Raven Software reps said they’ll take the extra time from the game’s delay to polish the title further.

What Needs Improvement?
Our Familiarity With The Controls: Raven packed a lot into the control scheme, which took a little getting used to. Gunplay is standard stuff—fire with the right trigger, sight or zoom with the left trigger. The game pad’s bumpers are used to work the TMD, which can initially be awkward, especially when one is trying to use the time glove to decay a barrier an enemy is hiding behind while also returning fire. We’re presuming the learning curve will be less steep in the retail experience, as players won’t be thrown a full arsenal from the get-go.

What Should Stay The Same?
The Shootin’: Capable stuff—not too surprising, considering Raven’s experience with first person shooters. Gunplay felt solid, with a nice variety of machine guns, shotguns and pistols. There’s even a pistol that fires Element 99 rounds, letting the player curve their shots. The TMD can also be used as a weapon, with rapid impulse bursts that push back enemies and a time revert function that pits enemies against each other.

The Graphics: Most of Singularity’s visuals are dark, gritty and moody. But there’s a splash of colour peppered throughout, with ghostly blues and oranges helping to break up the deserted environments. Singularity’s mix of futuristic and Cold War era settings makes for a nice mix.

The Puzzles: There’s some really clever stuff in the demo alone. At one point, we were blocked by a set of concrete stairs, which we had to degrade with the TMD’s age option. But then we need to get up those stairs, so we pointed the glove at the rubble and rebuilt them with the revert function. The Chronolight also came into play, with the demo requiring us to pull a platform from the past into the current time, filling the gap in a broken walkway.

Final Thoughts
Singularity’s move into next year is a disappointing one, because the mix of shooting and puzzle solving makes a relatively interesting shooter a potentially fascinating one. It’s going to take some getting used to grasp some of Singularity’s time shifting puzzle solving tactics, but we look forward to strapping on the glove again soon.

The Singularity graphic novel will tell the story of the mysterious events off of the Russian Peninsula that resulted in the unravelling of time, which is the main focus of the game itself. Activision and Twistory have tagged some top-notch talent to work on the book, with David Atchinson (Occult Times Taskforce) and Christopher Morrison (Dust, 13 Chambers) on writing duties, while Davide Fabbri (Dark Horse’s Star Wars) and Tom Mandrake (Batman, The Punisher) draw the pretty pictures to go along with the words. The single-issue graphic novel will debut shortly following the game’s release in May 2010.

Of course it wouldn’t be a Comic-Con announcement without a signing announcement, and this is indeed a Comic-Con announcement. Atchinson, Fabbri and Morrison will be at Activision’s booth #5001 for autographs and photographs at various times throughout the show.

This show must drive autograph hounds absolutely insane.

Activision has today opened a time portal for Singularity, moving it to Q1 2010, well out of range of Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2. Activision explains.

“The level of excitement for Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2 coming out of E3 well exceeded our expectations and therefore we have decided to move Raven’s upcoming sci-fi first person action title, Singularity, from 2009 to Q1 2010,” said an Activision spokesperson. “We believe that the March quarter will provide a better opportunity to establish the new cutting-edge action IP as a ‘must-have’ title and clears the way for Modern Warfare 2 to dominate this holiday season.”

Aside from all the Soviet-themed parade marching and sickle-flecked flags, there are also buildings exploding in reverse, some cool bullet/time control mechanics on display and a very emo soundtrack.

Just remember, kids: in Soviet Russia, game plays you. Oh and, reversing letters is a mean trick to play on dyslexics — it took me like a full 30 seconds just to read the game’s title.

Video Games | Singularity | E3 09: Exclusive Combat Trailer XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

The February issue of Game Informer drops a “world exclusive” on us, Activision and Raven Software’s Singularity. What is it? A sci-fi shooter, if you can possibly believe that.

According to the magazine’s teaser, Singularity “features mind-bending gameplay that not only has the player jumping through time, but using it as a weapon.” You get to combat those dirty Russkies, which is always a treat.

Even if you don’t subscribe to the mag, Game Informer online will apparently have some Singularity flavoured treats for you later this week. Here’s to hoping it’s good — because I’m guessing as a “sci-fi shooter” it’s going to need to do something spectacular to set itself from the pack.

Game Informer February Cover Revealed! [GI]