SOMA |OT| I Have No Mouth but I Will Scream, on The Dark Descent into A Machine

The Rain King said:
You didn't miss a great deal to be honest. Just some drawings and pictures of the
WAU and some recordings of his monitoring the WAU after the disaster, observing that it became more sentient. He then says that it can't be trusted to understand what it means to be human and that it needs to be destroyed.
Click to expand...
I think there may have been some confirmation or further insight into
the collusion between the three Carthage employees, of whom Ross is one.

There's a lot of inessential story content you can miss.
 
Finished the game last night. Absolutely loved it! Some parts could have been better. I think Simon's character was good, but the voice acting detracted from what they were going for.

Great ending.
Some early players described the ending as having a "twist", but I'm sure anybody paying attention knows things played out in a very predictable way. I mean that in a good way, though. It's tragic because you already know. Simon's reaction, like other have said, came across to me like a very human instinct to survive. Yes, he should have understood by then, but he wanted so fucking badly to escape that he convinced himself that's how it worked.
 
Just got to
the shuttle station beyond Lamba.

Got told to check the engine room so we can leave for Theta but the Lovecraft guy is in there. What do?

Also, what percentage of the game am I up to?
 
Auctopus said:
Just got to
the shuttle station beyond Lamba.

Got told to check the engine room so we can leave for Theta but the Lovecraft guy is in there. What do?

Also, what percentage of the game am I up to?
Click to expand...

He's ashamed of how fugly he is and doesn't like to be looked at :)
Your a little less then half way I think
 
Can one of you who's finished clarify something for me?

I'm in the dead body of Imogen Reed by means of a hijacked blackbox containing the scan of Simon, who's able to feel human via structure gel reanimation ?

Is that right? Cause the
part in the material scanner where Catherine checks to see what I'm made of kind of went too fast.

I'm kinda pissed off I took breaks in between playing and I've totally forgotten what I read in the game about WAU.

Is it just like a creepy version of
Jarvis from Iron Man?
 
I've been loosing it too man

I keep remembering something about sleeping and waking, and wether a person can be sure they're the same "being" after waking up, or just another one altogether with the same memories.

I forget where I saw/read that, but holy shit, this game is well researched, and so rich with info and lore.

It's what makes all so goddamn unsettling.
 
The game was fantastic, I loved it but I was a bit disappointed...
I was expecting to see this scene :
CbXHQ1b.gif


Here in full length :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWHVkMIP1b8
 
Beat it last night and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. I thought the narrative absolutely crushed Amnesia's, particularly the level design. Voice acting was so-so, gameplay was fine, though I think we're due for a change in the "helpless horror" genre to prevent it from becoming stale. I don't want them to drop a shotgun in my hands, but giving the player a little more power beyond simply hiding the entire game.

Oh, and if you haven't played The Talos Principle yet, it is a fantastic thematic companion to this game.
 
dr guildo said:
The game was fantastic, I loved it but I was a bit disappointed...
I was expecting to see this scene :
http://i.imgur.com/CbXHQ1b.gif[MG]

Here in full length :
[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWHVkMIP1b8[/url][/QUOTE]

I thought the game was set in space back then.
Click to expand...
 
i knew i was going to like this, but i honestly didn't expect to like it this much. it has pushed aside both the witcher and bloodborne as my current GOTY. i loved it. the atmosphere, the voicework, the themes of euthanasia, suicide, and what it is to be human. i loved that the choices where moral ones but not game-changing ones. it felt personal. and the stealth exploration gameplay was great, intense and genuinely scary... but mainly i loved how thought provoking it was and how long it lingered in my mind afterwards. something that honestly hasn't happened since silent hill 2.

you see 2 very different solutions to the "survival" of the human race. the WAU's super "logical" and literal approach with no understanding of quality of life only that it is creating "life". an "alive" or "dead" approach, even if it means walking corpses fitted with machinery and going insane. or you have the ark...a digital world with digital echo's of a mind floating in space. neither have the capacity to "save" the human race.

one gives us a semblance of normality, albeit digital and limited in scope, but no real future of re-population. whereas the other gives us the possibility of returning to the surface in the distant future at the expense of humanity (you're a robot corpse) and while the ark was always seen as the "good" option. i never felt like that and i liked that the game didn't have a particularly happy ending.

it really did make me question a lot of things. personally i deactivated every conscious robot i came across because they were damaged, unable to move and the thought of being stuck there for an eternity sounds like a nightmare to me. they would undoubtedly go insane and it seemed like a mercy killing of sorts. i poisoned the WAU to stop what i deemed an unethical solution to a problem that cannot be "solved" and i even killed the one living woman left on the planet, because the alternative was to leave her to starve to death or worse, be killed by some insane WAU machine/corpse...and it managed to give you these difficult choices without being black and white, without being some lame dialogue tree ala mass effect. it was just a choice you made in gameplay that impacted ME. not the character...ME. and very few, if any games manage that.
 
Really interested getting this game but unless it runs on MBP2011 I have to get it for PS4 which I heard has some issues. Is it worth getting for PS4?
 
A great article about the narrative
http://www.pcgamesn.com/soma/the un...he-most-narratively-ambitious-games-ever-made
I’ve been trapped in this mental state before, searching for answers my mind can’t comprehend. Of all the things to initiate the fear, though, a videogame has never been the catalyst - until I played SOMA. Inspired by authors such as Greg Egan, Peter Watts, China Mieville and Philip K Dick, as well as non-fiction books on neurology and the philosophy on the mind, SOMA isn’t your standard horror game
Click to expand...
 
Slow beginning, super strong ending.Shows that a strong story idea foes beat everything. They pulled it off as well. They have to make a movie out of it. It's great.
 
God I hate this game. It is absurdly clunky and slow. I just got on the ship or whatever and have hated every second of the game.

This might have the worst controls of any console game I have ever played. Combine that with every room being filled with 15 useless items and it is awful.

I wish Sony allowed for refunds. :(

Kudos to those who enjoyed it, but this might be my least favorite game of all time.
 
Help please. I'm at what I think is the end of the game or near it.
Just stepped off the climber/elevator and I'm at the bottom of the abyss.
the problem is my guy didn't put the Omnitool away, my character is walking around with it all the time and it makes it hard to see around. I even tried quitting and reloading but it didn't help. Is this supposed to happen or did I just get a bad glitch?

Edit: I finally got to a spot where I could
fist one of those robot alien anuses
and that fixed it
 
outunderthestars said:
God I hate this game. It is absurdly clunky and slow. I just got on the ship or whatever and have hated every second of the game.

This might have the worst controls of any console game I have ever played. Combine that with every room being filled with 15 useless items and it is awful.

I wish Sony allowed for refunds. :(

Kudos to those who enjoyed it, but this might be my least favorite game of all time.
Click to expand...

I know it's opinions and all, but least favorite game of all time?
 
Neuromancer said:
Help please. I'm at what I think is the end of the game or near it.
Just stepped off the climber/elevator and I'm at the bottom of the abyss.
the problem is my guy didn't put the Omnitool away, my character is walking around with it all the time and it makes it hard to see around. I even tried quitting and reloading but it didn't help. Is this supposed to happen or did I just get a bad glitch?

Edit: I finally got to a spot where I could
fist one of those robot alien anuses
and that fixed it
Click to expand...

Must be a bug, same thing happened at the same spot and i fixed it the same way.
 
Just finished it. Very much enjoyed it. I still think I like Alien Isolation better purely because I didn't find any bits of that annoying in a progression sense. There were a few times here where there was a creature blocking my path and just wouldn't move and it went from scary and tense to annoying having to lure or wait a long time for the creature to move while in Alien whenever the Alien blocked the path it seemed to move on more quickly or there were more routes to the destination.

I also really liked the ending and the (ending spoilers)
whole thing with conciousness getting copied and both living on. Like the thing in Star Trek where the argument is when you get transported that version of you is dead/stored in the transport buffer and the you on the other end while is you and has your memories is a reconstruction of you and not the you that first went into the transporter. Basically the ship of Theseus thing where is an object the same object if it was replaced piece by piece until no original parts were left? That stuff always interests me.

In the end though, I'm happy that the Ark was launched and that a version of Catherine and Simon made it on. It does absolutely suck to be left alone but I deactivated the first robo-Simon because I wouldn't want him to be left there all alone with the monsters.
 
Thrakier said:
Is it the same story? Do they get the point across? Worth watching?
Click to expand...

Absofuckinlutely. They wanted to put this out before the game went live, but some production problems arose if I remember allright and they've release it after.
Those live series are fantastic! Better then most film over a span of two hours.
So it's a prequel.

- These episodes are not 100% canon, hence the whole "inspired by" at the start.

- From the get-go the intention was to release this as episodes and not as a movie. To be able to cut it all into a movie was to be a fun extra if possible, but never the main intention.

- The episodes were meant to be released prior to SOMA's launch, but due to various issues they were delayed and we decided to release them post-launch instead.
Click to expand...
 
Finally finished it yesterday. Another exceptional game by Frictional. Story was very well handled, striking the perfect balance between being explanatory and leaving a little something there to your imagination. Definitely a part of my top ten this year.
 
Also finished the game recently. Such a fantastic experience. Definitely among my top 3 games this year. It's funny how I started off the game thinking that the big twist would be
that you're actually a robot. But instead of selling the player as dumb the game actually reveals it early and relatively anti-climatic and then dives a whole lot deeper in how the Protagonist actually deals with this situation
Overall is this game really a prime example of a well done narrative in a video game.

GwyndolinCinder said:
https://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thread-31192.html

Little poll by the team about how you feel about monster encounters.
I rarely would go out of my way to do a poll but i did find the enemy encounters to be an annoyance in a fantastic game.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure I'd describe them as annoying, they were definitely exhausting for me which I guess was sort of the point. But I agree that at times I could have done with less encounters. Though at the same time it was great how unpredictable they felt. I spend pretty much 90% of the game looking over my shoulder just because I was never sure what to expect.
 
I had a really great time with Soma. I am a sucker for under-water games, which was the deciding factor in this purchasing decision.

Not normally playing much in the horror genre, I was concerned the game would be too scary. But it really wasn't. It just was extremley dark, gloomy and depressing, which I loved, haha.

Strangely, a lot of the emotion I felt in this game I hadn't felt since playing half-life 1.

I actually thought the monsters were perfect.

There was only one scene in the game where one annoyed the hell out of me.

I did experience one game breaking bug though:
owards the very end I sent the ARK down the cargo elevator, but to the second floor, instead of the diving floor. No matter what I tried I couldn't get the elevator to go to the bottom floor. Eventually I just reloaded the previous chapter and did everyting in 2 min.
T

Also, I found my PS4 had difficulty some time with the game and it was lagging. Not sure if this is poor programming or what.

Also, don't forget to watch the credits,
as there is a very powerful final scene after that you don't want to miss.

Overall, 9/10 !
 
Since i got the recommendation for reading Ubik here, i am posting this as a quote.

brau said:
I just finished Phillip K Dicks "Ubik".

Holy cow what a book.

Thanks to them fancy gaffers on the SOMA thread for recommending me such a fine piece of fiction. Easily one of my favorite books now, and i am looking forward to reading more from PKD.
image.php
More_Badass
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EatChildren
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ScreamintMeat
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PolishQ

Any recommendations?

I am starting now "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" by Ransom Riggs. It looks alright.
Click to expand...

Soma was a great game, and i am more fond of it because it led me to read PKD. Can't believe i had not read any of his work.
 
Just wrapped everything up last night. Great game and fantastic story. Really, really enjoyed the pacing and environment after
you escape Theta
, especially the
deep ocean environment heading to Tau, Alpha, and Phi.
Holy cow.

I like how the "scares" were doled out at a minimum and you really are given reign to just explore, take in the sights, and be alone with your thoughts. Easily in my top 5 games I've played this year.
 
This thread reminded me: Amazon really needs to get Philip K Dick's full short story collection on Kindle. Unless something's changed in the last year, they only have bits and pieces.
 
I just beat the game a few moments ago. Story was great despite the meh voice acting. Monster encounters were better than Amnesia, though unlike most people, I thought there were too few of them. I may be misremembering but there seemed to be a greater number of them in Amnesia as well.

Outside of the encounters, gameplay was pretty meh though. The character movement didn't feel good to me, and the puzzles ranged from mediocre to bad. Atmosphere was great though. The
bottom of the ocean
was absolutely terrifying.

I enjoyed my time with it overall though. Definitely something that will stay in my head for a while...
 
So last night I had a pretty fucked up nightmare pertaining to SOMA. Not about SOMA, but heavily based on it, especially the hopelessness of the ending.

It was the kind of nightmare that zaps your brain and you kinda "forget" your state of mind before you went to bed. Definitely felt like I was losing my fucking mind in the morning.

Sticking to E rated games for a while... ;-;
 
Rapier said:
So last night I had a pretty fucked up nightmare pertaining to SOMA. Not about SOMA, but heavily based on it, especially the hopelessness of the ending.

It was the kind of nightmare that zaps your brain and you kinda "forget" your state of mind before you went to bed. Definitely felt like I was losing my fucking mind in the morning.

Sticking to E rated games for a while... ;-;
Click to expand...

Oh man...I remember my Alien Isolation nightmares lol.
 
Finished SOMA. Longer than I expected, Steam shows 15 hours, but I did go through everything. It is the best scifi horror ever right alongside Alien Isolation. So well written and designed...and I absolutely love Frictional's emphasis on immersion, they just pulled me into their world like not many games accomplish. The part in the abyss...brrrrr.

And of course the ending. This is how to do an ending.
 
Fallout-NL said:
Damn, going through Omicron now, the tension is unbearable.
Click to expand...
Right? The whole build-up to Omicron is great.
1) You're right next to this pitch-black abyss. 2) You need to go through that alternate route across groaning unsteady debris. 3) The first thing you see when you enter is decapitated bodies.

It's so intense
 
The game lingered in my mind a long time after finishing it. Someone actually recommended a book by Peter Watts called "Blindsight" if I liked SOMA. Of course I ordered the hard copy of that right away and am reading now and so far it's really good and it's satiating my lust for thought provoking scifi :) Need more frictional goodness though and it breaks me to think that their next game might be another 4-5 years away. I mean that is an eternity in game industry.
 
A few impressions after finally getting around to beating it:

The ending was absolutely fantastic, and the last little bit after the credits was a nice payoff.

The gameplay itself was fucking atrocious, and quite the slog for me to get through.

Overall, the story wasn't enough to distract me from how unenjoyable the game actually was.

Final verdict: 6/10
 
Thrakier said:
Slow beginning, super strong ending.Shows that a strong story idea foes beat everything. They pulled it off as well. They have to make a movie out of it. It's great.
Click to expand...

Just finished the game...I agree.

This might be the first game where they've explored a robot/human dynamic that is truly unsettling. Being asked to turn off a "robot" gets very disturbing when you know the circumstances of it's existence.
 
Been watching Patrick Klepek's playthrough of SOMA and really enjoying it. I can't handle horror games at all (barely got through 2 hours or so of Amnesia before quitting) and wish this game was even more like Gone Home than it currently is. I really love the aesthetic and story up to where Klepek is now (Tau) but seeing the monster sections up to that point I know I wouldn't be able to stomach a lot of them even if they are relatively short (and some fairly exploitable)
fuck the blind ones
. Seems like people are kinda divisive on it, though, even having hands-on experience with it. It's weird seeing the horror tone be enjoyable and yet in-the-way and annoying at the same time. I think it is both fitting in terms of the setting and environment and necessity for the narrative, but also gameplay wise it can end up being obstructive and almost annoying (one specific enemy late in the game:
The one in Tau that always knows where you are and just bee lines for you
).

Might be "controversial" but maybe it would have been fine to just put combat or some sort of weapon at your disposal. Horror games can be done with them and I don't see why every game that is aping to be "Amnesia" or the next popular horror game has to make to powerless.

Basically I want System Shock 3.
 
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