pls respond

>>319360710
Uuh because it was pointless

>>319360842

how so

>>319360158
I mean it was a bunch of robot who thought they were human.

Only idiots frustrated by the rules of consciousness trasnferrence in this game (what I personally think is likely to be the real deal) or people who literally were confused were upset by the ending.

>>319361139
Should have put quotes around "transference".

>the narrative to something isnt 100% absolutely perfect and positive in any regard
>WOW WHAT THE FUCK THE WHOLE STORY WAS POINTLESS??
>I HAVE BEEN BETRAYED BY THE NARRATIVE

>>319361139
Yeah i think you right people were mad consciousness transfer. The ending was fine.

>>319361139

the only dumb thing about the consciousness transference wasn't the consciousness transference itself, but how Simon was literally so stupid as to be explained what would likely happen to him like 4 times yet still failed to understand it

>>319361532
I know what you mean, but I don't think it is fair to say that is a fault of the game. That is a fault of the protagonist (hardly a protagonist, I guess.) which is believable.

Like, there was zero shock in this game at all for me, and I kind of like it. It's a subject that doesn't really leave a lot of room for hopes and I think it challenges a lot of people to think of what it is to be a conscious being. It's sort of arcane, but then it's also a little offensive to some I would bet.

>>319361532
To be completely fair on Simon, he was in a station at the bottom of the ocean with monsters and the Earth was destroyed. Not surprising that he would delude himself into thinking that the ARK was the way out.
I am also fairly certain that there is no coin toss. When the first copy of Simon occurs (into the new diving suit) the game just happens to give you control of the new Simon. If anything, you could argue that all the events of the game up until that point were the new Simon going through memories as part of the start up sequence for his AI.

>>319361909

>that there is no coin toss

There isn't, really. I think it was just the way Cathrine chose to explain it to Simon, to give him some sort of hope of a future.

There we're literally just two copies of him at the end with completely independent consciousnesses.

>>319361909
Yeah, the coin-toss was kind of distracting and possibly intentionally so on the part of the lady (been a while, can't remember name). THAT was the only thing afterwords I was confused by because even she seemed to stick to the idea right up until she was shut down, so either she was really playing the part or believed in the coin toss herself which doesn't make sense given everything else she demonstrated.

I think it's clear that was a sort of delusion, coping mechanism created by the future residents of the Ark.

>>319361909
>I am also fairly certain that there is no coin toss.
Of fucking course there's no coin toss. That doesn't make any sense. There's just another consciousness.

I was wondering, is shoving your hand in the WAU optional?

I mean, I can't think of any good reason not to, but is it possible to just leave alpha without doing it?

Was this really Philip K. Dick inspired?
I played through it, but can barely see the "inspiration".

It left me all bittersweet, was good game

>>319362097
>>319362118

Catherine didn't even make up the coin toss concept. Simon came up with it when he was on the climber going down into the abyss.

Catherine just used it because it was something she thought Simon would understand

>>319362197

Yep. Monster man gets all pissed off at you and tries to kill you. The worm comes and eats him then too

>>319362763
I think that was created by the OG suicide guy.

>>319362118
Catherine might have liked the coin-toss idea in that it allowed Simon to cope with there suddenly being two of him.
>Oh, right, a copy occurs
>Well, seems as though you won the coin toss!
>Nah, feel free to kill him, he's not the real Simon, you are.

Even after playing it, and ending the game with a shrug I'm still really glad that this game was made, or at least this story was told.

It's a true grey area conflict you rarely see in games. AND even if I thought it was mostly uninteresting, I still pop into these threads and talk about the ending multiple times. It was a good one for sure.

>>319362912

He thought of the carrying over of the consciousness, but that's a completely difference concept. That assume that its possible to only have one consciousness at a time

The coin toss assumes there will assuredly be two individuals after the scan

File: Raskolnikov-mode.jpg (41 KB, 600x400) Image search: [Google]

41 KB, 600x400

>>319360158
stupid bitch can't even cut&paste

>>319361909
Catherine probably just told Simon that bullshit so he'd continue to help her with the ARK.

>>319362912
Nah, suicide guy knew that it's a copy. His belief was that the moment after the scan occurs, both you and your electronic copy begin differing from each other just by virtue of the fact that you are exposed to different experiences. His fear was that if this kept on for long enough then your electronic copy will no longer be a proper representation of you.
Therefore, just kill yourself immediately so you can properly pass into the electronic world, or something.

>>319361532
>>319361858
Simon being dumb is reasonable there.

Catherine doesn't lie to him about the consequences, but she obviously tries to avoid stating it outright. The way she says things about how they're "getting on the ark" is misleading. Simon, who's clinging on to any hope he has left, takes it at face value and tries not to really think about it.

Also consider his experiences up to that point. As the Simon who made it to the rocket, his memories of brain scans are of being moved to a new body:

>brain scan in Toronto
>next thing he knows, he "wakes up" in the future
>brain scan to get into the power suit
>next thing he knows he's in the suit
While the implications of leaving a copy behind are obvious, Simon's memories of experiences are exactly as if he got transferred into a new body.

Woulda been neat if Catherine could have gotten her own body and physically moved Simon 2's cortex chip into a new body

A real brain transplant

>>319362197
I don't know if it's that clear cut, the WAU's only goal was to rebuild humanity so leaving it would be the only hope for the earth to host human "life" again.

Why didn't this game at least get nominated for "best story" in the VGA's?

>>319360158
The ending wasn't bad however they should have shown inside the arc first and then shown Simon left back at Pathos-II that way you could really feel the hopelessness and horror that Simon would feel

>>319364032
That's a...good point actually anon.
What the fuck?

>>319364032
Shit, you're right. It was a lot better than most of the actual nominations too.

>>319363417
you'd have to be mental to go through with that but given the circumstances

>>319364132
>>319364261
It's almost like the VGAs are a complete joke or something.

>>319360158
They didn't give a decent argument explaining why it was better to be on the ARK than it was to be in diving suits at the bottom of the ocean using the brain scans they had, the WAU, and all of the facility resources at their disposal to continue life on earth.

>>319364032
It just wasn't a big enough hit on youtube. It was one of my favorite games this year but there's just no way it's going to get any mainstream recognition.

>>319364403
This, I don't see how launching the ghosts of a dead species into space as a final dick waving measure was better than to try and create something new.

>>319364403

Interestingly, as bad as it looked in real life, the people hooked up into the WAU are likely living blissful virtual lives (think of when Simon 2 got hooked up to the wall). In addition to having a stable virtual reality solution already, the people experiencing the WAU's world are the actual people, not scans

The actual events of this game are not the most exciting, nor would I say there are many high points. There's the suicide group subplot that informs the main plot a lot, but I think it is pretty easy to miss even with the little they feed you. For this, I wouldn't say SOMA's plot is excellent but I think the themes are untapped in games, and that Catherine is a great character.

Whenever a game gets positive feedback frequently on /v/, others will automatically try and find the smallest flaw possible and start spamming in to prove that its literally the worst thing in history since hitler. They obviously overkill it while the positive feedback fades away leaving the board with the end verdict that this game has zero to offer.

Anyway sorry for my rambling. I loved the ending and all the other scanning parts. Really made me think about things like "being in someone elses shoes", sacrificing yourself for someone else, understanding the situation everyone of us is in. Shits deep.

>>319362228

Nigga, did you even read "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?"

>>319364403
It's not like they're trying to drive home that the ARK was the best and only way to "save" humanity. It was just Catherine's pet project and we're just seeing it to it's end. That being said, the facility only had a few years of power left anyways and it seemed pretty clear that there was no way human life could ever continue on earth. So the idea of a shuttle simulating the closest thing to humanity as it can for potentially 1000s of years isn't too bad of a preservation attempt.

>>319363375

Wasn't Catherine canonically a weak-willed, easily bullied woman? It makes sense that Catherine wouldn't try to say the ugly truth because she's unable to emotionally deal with the repercussions of the last human contact she has left getting angry and yelling at her.

>>319364403
Pathos-II was running out of power. One of the notes in the game said the place only had 13 days worth of energy left.

>>319364403
Huh? The reason why is because the WAU was taking everything over and they thought they were basically fucked.
Both choices (sticking yourself in a robot and then dying, sticking yourself in the ARK and then dying) didn't mean that you yourself would be able to escape being turned into an immobile fascimile of life by the WAU. They didn't want that, but didn't want have their lives and the history of human life on Earth amount to nothing by just dying. So they put copies of themselves on the ARK and then killed themselves to end it early.

>>319362197
>I can't think of any good reason not to

WAU is the last form of intelligence on Earth that has the means and motive to rebuild.

The WAU is a classic Asimovian computer; it wants to serve Humanity and do whatever it can to save Humanity. In the post-apocalypse, this means stuffing the remaining humans with structure gel and copying their minds like mad into Mockingbirds.

It's monstrous to us, but to the WAU it's saving them.

>>319365508
I actually bought it last week, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

I recently watched an LP of the game after finishing the game for myself and the ending hit me harder watching it then.

The final conversation between Simon and Catherine is so good

Plot and horror aside, is this game worth playing for its setting?

>>319366714
Hell yes

>>319366128
WAU was also keeping the remaining humans alive by merging them with structure gel and machinery.

All those still-living bodies are actual humans, but modifies to live forever in WAU's attempt to preserve humanity.

You could make the argument that, given enough time, the WAU would eventually find a perfect solution and bring back humanity in something very similar to their original form.

It had the data, and it had near infinite resources and time.

>>319366967
>It had the data, and it had near infinite resources and time.

Why does this sound a lot like MULTIVAC in "The Last Question?"

Hey look, another reference; the WAU is the Cosmic AC.

I don't have a problem with the story, but the game play was just bland. It felt like a completely watered down version of Amnesia.

It just didn't have the sense of impending doom that even AMFP had.

Frictional games just got lucky with Amnesia.

AMFP was a sharp drop in quality and Soma had the same drop off as that.

They focused more on the experience of the story than they did the game play experience, except that the story wasn't nearly as good as Amnesia.

>>319367219

i think the story was "mundane" and lacking in any outrageous twists or elements due to the fact that it was more focused on philosophy

>>319366714

absolutely

its an incredibly immersive game

>>319367219
They didn't even make AMFP. And the story was WAY better than Amnesia's are you kidding?

They definitely need to make a radical change in gameplay for their next game. I don't know why they're so allergic to combat in horror, a game can be scary without you being helpless. You just need to not be a unstoppable badass.

>>319365861
That's true, I forgot about all that. I still think it would also benefit her to leave out some of the details since Simon was basically her last hope.

>>319367219
what are you smoking anon, soma story/setting was miles better than amnesias

>>319362197

it changes nothing; all the choices you make in the game are there purely for the sake of immersion

i read the note on the guys tablet that the WAU was manipulating machines to what it wanted, so i initially tried to walk away from the WAU

nigga got mad and the wau killed him so i figured he wasnt actually the wau trying to trick me lel

Reminder that they couldn't have a thing where the Simon you are and the Simon you just transferred from are both up and arguing then try to kill each other because Simon's freaking out like always over which is actually him. They'll never have a thing of two Simons trying to work with each other or go their own ways to get to the Ark, or even try to sabotage each other.

>>319360158
the ending was one of the only things I thought was good about soma.

>>319364032
>>319364132
>>319364261
>>319364457
The story was entry-level science fiction/existential philosophy, hampered by excessive exposition and retarded characters.

>>319371540
Even that should be enough to make it on the nominee list.
The fact that they successfully incorporated the philosophical themes into the game and make use of the medium without resorting to creating an "interactive story" puts it above the other nominees.

Also, the exposition was hardly excessive and the characters hardly stupid. Simon is not a dumb character for going along with Catherine's manipulation for the faint glimmer of hope it presented him.

>>319364032
It got nominated for "best JUST" in the VGAs