Call it the Jack of All Trades Design Theory: cram as many kickass signature elements from other games into your project and simmer the resulting mix until it’s cooked evenly all the way through. But it’s a risky strategy. Most of the time, a jack of all trades is a master of none.

Not in this case, it seems. We got exclusive hands-on time with Singularity, a new IP from Raven Software, one of the most consistently reliable developers in the business. And on paper, it’s definitely a “kitchen sink” type of approach: BioShock-flavored art direction, a Half-Life 2 Gravity Gun–esque primary item, and a healthy dose of good ol’ time travel thrown in.

So what is it? Singularity’s intriguing chronobending narrative pits you as modern-day U.S. armed forces pilot Nate Ranco, whose plane crashes on a mysterious island off the coast of Russia that, according to world maps, was not supposed to exist. As the story unfolds, you’ll learn about Element 99, a powerful compound discovered by the Russians during the 1950s that manipulates the chronology of items, accelerating or reversing their age. This island — top-secret Katorga 12 — was initially set up as a research outpost to study the element and weaponize it. But a massive accident ruptured the space-time continuum, leading to…unforeseen consequences and the shutdown and cover-up of the island by the Russian government.

Fast-forward to 2010, and the Russkies decide to take yet another crack at harvesting Element 99. Uh oh…

The level we played takes place approximately halfway through the campaign. After discovering and equipping the game’s primary hook — the glove-like Time Manipulation Device that can accelerate or reverse the chronological status (or age) of objects like chairs, buildings, crates, and even explosive barrels — we encountered our first simple puzzle inside one of the buildings in the rundown, 1950s Cold War–era facility. With our progress stopped by a concrete wall, we simply aimed our targeting cursor at the barrier and pressed RB to age the cement. We were able to pass through the crumbled rubble and then rebuild the object by reversing its age with LB, reassembling what turned out to be a staircase, which we could then ascend to continue.

The story is helped along by what we saw next — scenes that Raven dubs Echo Events. Ghosty silhouettes play back what island scientists were doing just as the catastrophic meltdown occurred in the ’50s. At this point, a mysterious facehugger-like creature called a Soul Leech attacked and possessed one of the two men. What was that all about? Hmm…

As the gameplay grew more complex over the course of our hands-on time, so too did the story. Walking into a room, we were transported into the Null Zone, an alternate dimension of sorts that Dr. Barisov — the head scientist on the E99 project in the ’50s — has been trapped in ever since. He tells you it’s an unstable place, and that another E99 wave could wash over the base and blip you back to reality at any moment. As apparently the only sane person left, he urges you to help him stop the Russians from toying with Element 99 any further, lest another accident have potentially worldwide, humanity-destroying results.

Back on the battlefield, the level’s massive combat finale impressed the gigawatts out of us. In an open courtyard, we were attacked by Reverts, the mutated humans who’d been taken over by the freaky Soul Leeches. As gooey, bile-spewing bipedals, they proved difficult to bring down at first, but they were nothing a few Y Button Repulse blasts from the TMD and some well-placed shotgun blasts wouldn’t fix. We turned the corner to find more bad guys — some Reverts and some special ops sent by the government to wipe us out for what we’d seen.

Taking cover behind a concrete sewer pipe, they started hurling grenades. One went off all too close, reducing our sewer-pipe shield to rubble. (Of course, we could simply use our TMD to de-age and rebuild it.) A second grenade landed nearby a moment later, but this time we thought more quickly. We clicked in the right thumbstick to use the TMD’s time stasis to grab and snatch the grenade — freezing it in time so it didn’t detonate. We then used RT to fire it back to its original owner, taking out one of the targets.

Next we saw the remains of a crate from behind our cover spot. Reversing its age with the TMD, it reassembled, only to see us break it again and collect its bygone contents: an E99 revolver and six rounds. Firing it puts the camera behind the bullet and allows you to steer the round to its target from safely behind cover. Headshot!

Two more enemies remained. One was standing high above us on the other side of the courtyard, parked in the third story of a decimated building underneath a leaning, longwrecked façade. Accelerating its age with the TMD caused it to give way and fall onto our third attacker, smooshing him instantly.

And the last foe, who stood firing rockets at us from another high floor in the same building, nearly took us out before we realized we could try the same time stasis move to pluck the rocket out of midair inches from our face, turn it around, and fire it back from whence it came. Victory!

With the path finally clear through the courtyard, we came to our goal: an E99- amplifying machine. In a cutscene, Nate plugged in and used the juiced-up TMD to reconstruct the entire building. We then had to run through, though, as something that large wasn’t going to stay chrono-altered forever — and it began crumbling again immediately. But another pair of bad guys stood in our way. Fortunately, they were standing next to a badly aged shell of a barrel. TMD-ing the barrel back to its youth, we shot it, and the resulting explosion took out the first pest. We then anti-aged the fresh corpse, reviving the Revert. Sure, we had to kill it a second time, but only after it did us the grin-inducing favor of wiping out his buddy.

By the time we had to put our controllers down, we’d become subscribers to the Jack of All Trades Design Theory. Raven seems to have successfully fused the most memorable elements from its first-person peers, resulting in a combat experience that, at least for one level, was as open-ended as it was morbidly delightful. If the story pays off on top of it all, Singularity could be our next shooter obsession.