SOMA

MFG38 said:

For some reason, the aesthetics look awfully similar to Doom 3 with a small hint of Alien: Isolation thrown in.

Either way, consider me interested. This also reminds me, I still haven't finished Amnesia: The Dark Descent...

Yeah, I really like the aesthetics, really reminds me of Doom 3.

Touchdown said:

Heh, truth to be told, a part of me wants to try and go through every little point and counter it. :) Maybe I'll adress some of them later but I just don't feel like doing it right now.

Dunno how good an approach would "adressing to counter" be, since it's all just people's personal tastes anyway, but it would be an interesting discussion so long as noone flies into a rage or something.

Personally, I don't remember if I have ever been able to feel anything from just the story and lore alone, since I stopped being a little child. I mean, in games that let me make morality-based choices I still try being as nice as possible to everyone since that's what I would do IRL (if I was some super adventurer or whatever), for example in games like the recent Witcher 3, or even freakin' GTA4 where you get choices to kill people or not. I'm like the paladinest of paladins in those games.

But I can't say I've ever been horrified by some mentioned implications or whatever. I am unsettled or creeped out by the general atmosphere but that tends to come from the most unexpected of places these days. Like Axiom Verge - that thing is pretty unsettling despite being what it is.

MFG38 said:

For some reason, the aesthetics look awfully similar to Doom 3 with a small hint of Alien: Isolation thrown in.

Really? I would say its the other way around, Has that visual style that really reminds me of aliens more than anything.

So, is anyone playing it?

I must admit that I'm left with the same feelings that Amnesia left me with: boredom, occasionally punctuated by "Heh that's kinda creepy" moments. I guess I fell for the old marketing trick of showing the best part of the game in the trailer.

Oh crap, I pre-ordered it and forgot to download.

I'm going to have to do my laundry first, cause I'm short on underwear.

I am and so far I'm liking it, considering I liked Amnesia: TDD.

DooM_RO said:

What I would really like to see is a game that starts out normal for a quarter or half of the game and then strange things start happening all of a sudden but the game SHOULDN'T be marketed as a horror game and they shouldn't make it obvious in the beginning.

i disagree. it'd just be a commercial version of those jumpscare flash animations and videos which has a monster pop out of nowhere to fuck with the viewer.

Did you like Doom 3, Dead Space and System Shock 2? If yes then you're in for a treat.

I think it looks cool. My immediate thought when @ found dead Karl Semken was that he or someone had his brain downloaded to the robot. I wouldn't be able to play this game because I would probably have a heart attack. But if it wasn't for that small detail I definitely would be interested in it. I like puzzle games and this one was fun; I especially liked the diversion with the brick and the trap doors at the top of the stairs. Of course I'm not aware of many modern games, so any new game usually looks impressive to me.

Well, I've been playing since this morning, and I just finished it. Hooray for robot gore!

I'm mixed about the horror elements. I think it was satisfyingly terrifying, but the execution of the story was simply amazing... definitely the selling point here. Some of the environments were so thick with atmosphere, I thought I would drown (heheh) from all the saliva filling my mouth. I had a few "oh shit, oh fuck" moments, but nothing quite like what I had with Amnesia. I hate to hold Amnesia as the standard here, but Frictional really outdid themselves with it, and I doubt too many games will hold up to that, SOMA included.

There were a lot of ethical choices and I hated making every single one of them. Some very cringe-worthy moments. I don't know if any of them actually had an impact on the game itself, but bravo for evoking the mixed emotions.

If anyone is on the fence about SOMA, it's definitely worth trying. It's a very beautiful game.

As a huge fan of Frictional Games since Penumbra, I've been waiting for SOMA for ~5 years. Let's face it, after half a decade of eager anticipation I expected every aspect of the game to be perfect so that did damage my experience a bit. That doesn't change the fact that SOMA is in my opinion a remarkable game, so I'll offer some thoughts.

SOMA is one of those games that I think are a bit less mainstream, more demanding. It's a game that requires your attention and involvement. You have to be willing to dive into it with both feet. If you want/prefer to just sit back and let the game entertain you, you will not enjoy this one as much. If you're someone who for whatever reason cannot treat the game seriously and is not willing to ponder the themes presented to you, you're in the wrong place.

Amnesia was in many ways a very accessible game. It was very much focused on the 'scary' aspects with the story in the background so it was easy to understand and consume as an experience. SOMA is not that focused on scaring you but rather on presenting interesting and disturbing themes and questions. Again, it requires your involvement. If you're not involved and just expect the game to scare and entertain you, you're probably not the target audience.

I'm not easily scared and SOMA certainly did not make me jump or overly tense in its "monster sections". I think people who just want to be scared may leave off disappointed. SOMA doesn't have jumpscares, it doesn't try super hard to scare you like many newschool dumb horror games do. The terror comes from somewhere else but it won't work if you don't care.

If you do, though, certain aspects of the story are something truly unique, especially in the video game.

That might sound like a bunch of excuses. But let's be honest, most games today are spoon-feeding the whole experience to the players, requiring no mental effort from them whatsover. It's all about fun and stuff! I appreciate games that take risks of alienating those people by trying to be a bit more ambitious than that.

Basically, if you're someone who goes like "blah, blah, whatever, where do I go now", then don't play this game.

In terms of gameplay, it's Amnesia / Penumbra but maybe a bit less in your face. If you've played The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, you might recognize the awesome approach of not shoving the solutions down the players throats. You have to figure stuff out on your own and I think it strikes a nice ballance of making players feel smart and able to progress but at the same time not making the solutions super obvious or effortless.

SOMA has its own share of problems. Pacing appears to be one of them. Keep in mind that I have only played the game once and during that time I was looking at every pixel so I might have messed it up for myself. But it does seem like sometimes there's, let's just say, too much of one thing for a long time. The climax of action does not really feel like a climax (though the ending is freaking awesome, it gave me shivers). Maybe playing the game 'properly' without analyzing every nook and cranny will yield a better experience in that regard.

Generally I'm very happy with this game though, again, it's not for everyone. Let me reiterate. Expecting a game that will scare you might leave you disappointed. Expecting the game to do all the work of involving you in the experience will leave you disappointed. Play at your own risk.

EDIT: I'm really glad, though, that Frictional Games have managed to create something that is my type of a horror experience. For the past years I've felt that after Amnesia there was an explosion of copy&paste, jumpscare-ridden, no-substance horror games reminiscent of a shitty state of horror movies. In this desolate landscape of paperthin horror games, SOMA stands out as one of the few that attempt to go deeper than just your tired 'booo! spooky!' random jumpscare nonsense with nothing else to offer.