SOMA
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You are currently reading a thread in /v/ - Video Games
You are currently reading a thread in /v/ - Video Games
>deep sea terrors
>existentialism
>super pretty
>that ending
How is SOMA not your GOTY?
>>320874551
>How is SOMA not your GOTY?
not enough environmental hazards, wasted potential
annoying monsters, not interesting, scary or helpful to the story, just annoying
>>320874551
It was boring.
>>320875087
That moment with the noise monster guarding the power cell was p scary.
>>320874551
/v/ only likes meme horror games. It needs constant jump scares like FNAF or panty shots like Fatal Frame.
>>320874551
For a game that takes place underwater it's pretty fucking shallow
>that ending
>your character, who is clearly clinically retarded, misinterprets things that have been clearly laid out and repeatedly demonstrated
They tried to play up the existentialism but did so by making him repeatedly miss a simple concept, which is dull
>>320875689
He didn't miss it you dummy he just hoped until the very end that he'd be on the right side.
>>320874551
Dunno, it didn't have the same omph that Amnesia had.
>>320874551
I never played it.
>>320874551
Because this came out
>>320875982
he did (and apparently you too) there's not chance of "another side" in this game.
>>320874551
A boring and bland gameplay which is tied together with a flat theme that has been explored ages ago and not only in sci-fi
I will admit, underwater sci-fi horror is a good setting
>>320876556
keeeeep stretching to shit on things, maybe you'll reach for something valid one of these times :)
>>320874551
>How is SOMA not your GOTY?
It is.
The ambiance was exceptional, mostly due to the sound design. I felt other elements of the game were much weaker. The graphics were subpar most of the game and as far as scare factor this game is tame next to alien isolation.
I also feel the setting was underutilized. For example we only saw a few hostile under water creatures.
I dont think its game of the year but it is highly underrated
>>320875982
No, he knew how it worked. It had happened to him twice before. It was explained to him a multitude of times.
There is no "right" side. His conciousness keeps going on in two realities, the one in the chair and the one on the Ark.
Both exist simultaneously. The one in the chair will ALWAYS have the perception of being on the "wrong" side and the one in the Ark will always have the perception of being on the "right" side.
I can't believe you are retarded as Simon, anon.
ayy
>>320875689
I dunno dude it's pretty deep
>>320876705
The game had shit gameplay with dumb as fuck monsters and no interactivilty with gameworld, it a valid complaint about the game half of which resolves around horror element. The other half is exploration, which mostly doesn't do shit, since there's nothing really to explore. You're going to experience the plot regardless of whether you're going to look in every cupboard or not. And there are a lot of pointless cupboards. Fuck off
>that angler fish part
I liked the story, OP, and it was an amazing experience. I enjoyed most of it but a lot of the parts just weren't fun.
There weren't enough areas with enemies, not enough challenges.
The story kept me going and despite how retarded Simon is I enjoyed his journey and the story of the Pathos-II.
>mfw coming across the teleporting monster in the sunken tanker
>>320877096
Now THAT was some good fucking game design
>Count on lights in the distance that whole segment
>running to them
>they kepe getting further and further
>traverse the cave
>other side
>light
>NOPE
>>320877096
Unfortunately the gamma ruins all my screen shots but ya bruh I'd recommend the game on that part alone. Too bad it's at the very end.
>>320876917
That's not how it works at all. Catherine tells you there's random chance who you will end up as.
If it didn't work like that then the player character would still be stuck in the first chair.
>>320877461
No dude, Catherine is LYING to you so that you will still help her save humanity by dangling one piece of hope in front of you the whole time. That's the whole fucking point you dense fucker.
>>320877361
>that was the only part of the game spoiled for me.
oh well.
>>320877461
Catherine is LYING to Simon. How did you not pick this up?
>>320877461
and the chair/new Simon thing was the game breaking it's narrative a little just for the sake of the game. But there is no coin-toss, there never was, it doesn't make any sense and it would be the one piece of magic in an otherwise scientific concept.
>>320877461
You're a real moron, catherine tells you that because simon is a stupid child that needs to be told comfortable lies. She even admits how it works when she forgets to put simon to sleep in omicron, thats why she gets mad ehen simon acts like a child about it in phi. Pay attention.
>>320877709
The whole coin toss concept makes sense as a metaphysical concept, it just obviously doesn't hold up in the real world when you're physically copying data between storage devices.
>>320877342
Literally all mosnters are pic related, it's not even funny. Second one is the worst though.
Hated the third one, which was supposed to be blind but can hear your actions. He was near a console, so I tried to launch something away from it. When the thing landed instead of going to where it landed direction it rushed me. The devs were not even trying.
>>320877461
The game's just poorly implemented. Because it "feels" like there's a continuum across bodies , with the same conscience, when there's a "Leap" from the first guy you play as, to the second.
Because it'd make absolutely no fucking sense for the first guy to wake up with no swimming suit and the player to be stuck inside it if the game was to carry on.
>>320877910
>metaphysical
>makes sense
You can apply a number of mechanical analogues to life and "life-force" but that doesn't mean it makes sense. But I understand what you mean, it's just not how it works in the game.
>>320877461
Nigger, Catherine clearly states that she thinks that faggots who killed themselves after being uploaded to the Ark are complete idiots. This is what she actually thinks, not whatever she tells to Simon
>>320877910
but there's no coin toss at all. Even metaphysically.
Because that'd imply your first identity could carry over from one body to the second.
Which doesn't happen.
You -copy- your conscience to a second body. After the deed is done, you're still in the first body.
Think about the scientists uploading themselves to the ark - There was a computer simulation of them inside the program: functioning, talking, feeling, walking.
But the physical bodies stayed behind . Because their conscience was copyed as opposed to "transfered" (which is impossible) , they were always doomed to suffer underwater.
>>320878146
Doesn't that make sense cause it ensures they "win the coin toss?"
As usual frictional games explain you everything. There is almost nothing left to interpretation like in FNAF games for example. They should leave some mysteries in the plot.
>>320878274
>which is impossible
It's questionable, but in SOMA's universe it does not exist
>>320877919
I don't understand, you're upset at the AI because you flubbed the throw and attracted the monster towards you?
I generally agree that the execution of the monsters was a weak point of the game. They were good in concept though.
>>320876348
ahahaha
yeah, no
>>320878526
Not that guy but that enemy didn't really seem consistent, he just kind of behaved however he wanted imo
>>320878383
No. There is no coin toss when you have to copy minds between storage devices. You create a copy of your mind which goes on to live in the ARK. Your mind, which is a manifestation of the data held inside your brain, is stuck inside your human body.
the coin-toss was something simon fucking came up with on his own as he was riding down to the bottom of the ocean
cathrine just goes along with it
to be completely fair, given Simons situation, i would expect him to cling to the smallest amount of hope he possibly had, no matter how implausible or impossible it is
>>320878383
Coin toss is something they've invented so they can feel better for themselves dying in an underwater station with a corrupted AI after the apocalypse. There's no coin toss. Player is not transferred in the beginning, player was a robot all along. We just experience his last memories before mindcopy for the narrative's sake.
>>320874551
ruined by the main guy being a fucking retard
nowhere close to as good as amnesia
wasted potential because the setting was GOAT
>>320878493
it's not fucking questionable.
Your conscience is a set of chemicals and wired neurons and electrical discharges (shown to directly impact how alert and "smart" you are at any given moment).
Not only is your perception of reality based on what your inputs are (eyes, hands, skin), it's distorted by hormones.
When you're "uploading" your "conscience" into the fucking ark, what you're doing is saving your brainwave patterns / chemicals profile / hormone profiles as a .dat file which the game will then simulate.
What you're saying is akin to creating a rudimentar AI file in GTAV and claiming it's a version of your own psyche which is running independently in the game. You're still locked out of ever entering the game retard. There's no fucking coin toss.
>>320878615
The fleshers and proxies seemed to pretty rigidly follow the rules but Akers did seem to sometimes see you despite not having eyes. Yoshida (the guy in the power suit) was kind of neat because you could make him pause briefly by looking at his "face".
There were 5 points in the game where it would trigger the monster to chase you no matter what.
>>320878526
I didn't flubble the throw. The monster is supposed to go to the sound, but the gameworld doesn't reflect it. There's only 1 source of sound: it's you. Nothing else in the game, no interactive object actually makes the sound for the AI. That's why when the when I threw the cylinder or whatever it rushed towards me.
>>320878937
Right, which is why it makes sense as a metaphysical philosophical concept but (probably) isn't physically realizable.
pretty game, spoiler image
This game satisfied my autistic need to work out what happened to everyone and who all the bodies were. So that was nice.
It was also comfy as fuck.
>>320877461
>That's not how it works at all. Catherine tells you there's random chance who you will end up as.
Are you retarded? It's a brain scan, not a fucking brain transplant. All simulations exist indepentently, this isn't even a hard concept to grasp.
>>320879203
>both fresh and coagulated blood
>>320878778
that's pretty grim, but I feel like I understand catherine's character better and yeah the people who killed themselves are dumb.
>>320879319
looks like blood and hydraulic fluid or something to me. she is wearing a power suit. Also kind of looks like structure gel but I dunno why she would be covered in the stuff in Phi Station
>not having the strength to rip out the WAU's tentacles from you
>>320874551
It was good but I'm glad I didn't pay for it.
>>320879239
If the human consciousness is just static then why wouldn't it be possible to transfer it?
What I played: SOMA
What I expected from the trailer: Nightmare worlds inside your brain where you are tortured and played with and other creepy things
What I got: Philosophy and social ethics
It's not my GOTY, but I really enjoyed SOMA.
It's linear as hell and there's no real replayability, the "combat" is kind of dumb, it's fairly short and the narrative is more or less just a mashup of several popular modern scifi tropes, but it's very well done and worth playing through if you're a fan of scifi or atmospheric games in general.
>>320878937
I'm not talking about coin toss, I'm talking about digital transference with a more sophisticated tech. A tech that does not simply scan your image and tries to replicate it, but something akin to a teleporter that transfers you piece by piece. Lets put down a question of whether the teleporter actually teleports you or makes a clone, and assume the former. All of the initial cells in your body are gone, do you feel that you're not the same? Same principle applied here, except in accelerated state with complete disintegration of your body.
I turned on God mode because the monsters were annoying and I couldn't kill them.
Made the game much more enjoyable to me. I got to explore everything and not deal with shitty, not scary, just plain annoying monsters bothering me.
There need to be way more deep sea horror games. It is genuinely the most terrifying environment.
>>320879727
You can transfer the brain when that tech is available, and your conscious would follow (from what we currently know)
my only complaint with the game is that the monsters always know the general area youre in
so even if you avoid them they'll still only roam the 2 hallways adjacent to you
>>320879637
>having a crazy monster side story just because it would be too hard to fit in if they just stuck with the main theme of the game
>>320874551
it's a three hour long walking simulator
>>320879903
I think it was kind of a mixed bag. Akers was the only enemy I didn't really like because I just wanted to dig through the Theta labs and learn about what happened.
IMO the enemies were done well in the nightmarish Theta basement and in the Abyss.
>>320880143
more like 10-12 but yeah
it's a really good one though
>>320879203
If you can recognize that body, you've already played through the game. It really doesn't look like her avatar at all.
>>320880053
what?
>>320880249
The abyss was well done . everything else sucked.
The abyss redeemed the whole game for me actually.
>>320874551
Great atmosphere, no actual appeal in playing the game.
>>320874551
The ending got me good.
But what were those alien buttholes for, other than fisting them? like what did they even do
>>320880901
They were WAU "flowers" where you could access structure gel and energy flowing through the WAU tentacle network, which heals you since you're half robutt. Why exactly the WAU creates them in the first place isn't really known because it's a weird non-human based AI that nobody really understands.
>>320874551
Never played it so why would it be my GOTY. In fact I've never even heard of the fucking game before, no lie.
>>320881232
>>320880901
I don't know if it alters the game at all, but the more you fist the flowers the more 'corrupted' your character becomes. The first time he sticks it in, its just his finger, eventually he has to stick his whole arm in and struggles to get it out.
Undertale had more emotional impact for me.
>>320881412
Played through it twice. Pretty sure the only time you just touch it is when you still think you're human. As soon as you transform to being a walking, talking dive suit it's all glowing anus fisting.
Doesn't change your outward appearance or the ending at all either.
>>320881412
he becomes a full time dungeon master as the game progresses
![tumblr_ls7d92n8mH1ql5v3c[1].gif](https://i.imgur.com/3VL7Ymn.gif "tumblr_ls7d92n8mH1ql5v3c[1].gif")
1. The concept is neat. Brain scans being put into robots that can't tell they're just copies. Some giant matrix like sim running full of brain scan copies of people. That's neat.
2. The "spooky monsters" are a fucking joke and ruin the game. It makes no real sense why they're chasing you like scoobydoo villains other than this is all Frictional knows about game design. Literally copy-paste of their previous games with no serious explanation of why there's monsters or why you should be running from them.
3. The main character is retarded level stupid. First, he wakes up undadasea and has to learn what happened to him. Next he finds outA. He was scanned one hundred years ago and copied into a pilot suit. B. He copies himself into a heavy diving suit. C. He erases multiple other copies of himself lingering in data files. D. He copies himself into the Ark.And right up to the end he has no idea what's happening, why, or what it will mean for him throughout the process. Clinically retarded.
4. The setting/characters are a mixed bag. Everything looks great but a great deal doesn't make sense. Often you'll run up on a dead NPC that looks like it's been dead for a decade, only to run up on one right next to it that has dripping blood and buzzing flies around it. I don't think the entire art team was working on the same design doc.
Overall, a 6.5/10. Would have loved complex puzzles and actual enemies not just spookmans, or even no enemies at all.
>>320874551
>cool aesthetics
>decent voice acting
>interesting themes and symbolism
Didn't save the it from being a linear walking sim with some monster dodging and a few lateral thinking puzzles.
>>320881772
I don't think it was trying to be anything more than a linear walking sim with some monster dodging and a few lateral thinking puzzles, cool aesthetics, decent voice acting and interesting themes and symbolism though.
>>320881715
Don't worry family I got your reference there.
>>320882268
thank you sir
There is no "coin toss." Everyone has individual streams of consciousnesses (SoC). Copies made from these SoC's will remember earlier events from the original, and it will seem like an unbroken chain of thought, but they're still just copies. The guy who actually steps into the chair, his SoC, doesn't go anywhere. The new copied SoC just thinks it is the same person. There's no random chance. The game obviously follows and switches to the SoC that can continue playing the game, but there's no "coin toss."
Simon's just dumb. Maybe there will be a sequel where Simon travels to another station to fight another WAU or something.
Good game, 8/10
>>320876917
In his defense, he had a brain injury
>>320874551
Gameplay's kind of shallow and I haven't played Bloodborne yet so I don't know which one will be my favorite.
>>320881765
The main character was litterally brain damaged, so maybe it fucked up his thought process a bit. Combining this with all the stress and hopelessness of the setting, that might be why he isn't exactly thinking straight
>>320882410
oh also I thought it was great when you first enter TAU, if you wait by the airlock entrance you'll hear it opening again and the monster Ross guy can be seen following into the station, he disappears quick though
nice touch
>>320882042
>game goes in deep with CINEMATIC stuff that only wows normies
>game neglects gameplay
>game falls flat
It should've at very least aspired to be a video game and not an interactive syfy original movie.
The game tries to put emphasis on the story but a lot of the plot elements they show to the player are poorly explained. The Coin Toss theory confused Simon the same way it did most of /v/ because they only mentioned it in passing. The twist at the end of the game came off cheap because of it.
>>320883072
Simon and most of /v/ are brain damaged so it makes sense
>>320877923
Theres no leap.you just play the entire game as Simon 3.
>>320883192
There are three possibilities.
> /v/ and Simon are retarded
> Robot bitch was lying
> It was an extremely shitty story
>>320874551
I thought Amnesia was pretty dull pretty quickly so I'll probably never try Soma
>>320883336
and considering that Simon literally starts the game with a brain injury, it's the first one
>>320883512
also the second one
>>320883336
Cath didn't lie, it was just that Simon was unwilling to accept the truth, especially after Simon 2.0 bit the dust in front of him with Cath outright explaining what is going to happen and Simon 3.0 still believe he has a chance of getting on the ark.
Cath was just luring him with a carrot because she knew this mule wouldn't walk if she force the uncomfortable truth on him.
>>320882775
>The main character was litterally brain damaged,
That's actually an interesting point. The whole impetus of the game is that the MC suffers a serious brain injury.
Amazingly they did nothing with that. They could have designed game sequences with "false memories" or "unreliable sensory data" or any number of cool brain problems. Only there's one real problem there, his brain died 100 years ago in Toronto. Depending on how the brain scan works, in theory it's now just a simulation containing his memories and personality.
Either way, I'd be interested in playing a horror game from the perspective of a brain damaged crazy person (insert "any AAA game qualifies" joke). But since they did absolutely nothing interesting with his brain damage as a concept other than as the mcguffin to get the plot started, I can't really give Frictional a pass for their MC being dumb as a rock.
I still really like the ending.The argument, Catherine finally getting tired of Simon's shit and snapping at him, leading to her death, all of it really
>>320883817
>I'd be interested in playing a horror game from the perspective of a brain damaged crazy person
You would love this game then, if you haven't played it already.
I am putting it off because I am not in a good mental condition right now and it might just make me feel worse than I already am feeling right now.
>>320884185
Steam release run ok on modern systems?
I've been farming for a soma prime but I still think the tonkor is better
Anyone watch theterriblelive action shorts?
>>320883817
I went towards that the robots needed a coping mechanism to adjust to the new forms.Simons was better than most because it was humanoid,but he still needed a coping mechanism and once the whole im human thing fell apart he needed something else.
>>320884761
i did but didnt realize that people had deciphered the chronological order and made a proper playlist until afterwards
they were neat even if they were Syfy level
>>320885140
>IT'S THE WEIGHT
>OF THE SEA
>THE WEIGHT...OF THE SEA
Also this shit had me rolling
https://youtu.be/fhmWWVqkdHE
the first part
Man the whole time i was playing the game i was hoping that the surface was completely fine, that all this bullshit was just like the experiment went completely fucked and to trick the fucking WAU from expanding past the base they made everyone believe the earth was destroyed.
Like the company that owned that shit just went under or burned all the books or something and broke all contact after making up some shit about a comet. It had to be "real" to the inhabitants so that the WAU believed it once it devoured the minds of everyone.
Like, the ending would have been fucking amazing if the satellite was floating up in space and everything was completely fine on earth.
If they do an expansion a la Amnesia: Justine or whatever they should do a group of Russians trying to survive the apocalypse in one of those crazy miles-deep salt mines.
It could be half flooded and they need to reach something at the bottom to utilize the water effects they developed.
>>320885757
Would've felt like a cop out to me.
In the stories they posted online a scientist actually escapes Pathos by climbing up the gun barrel. She dies after a couple hours from toxic fumes, but better than dying from hunger/disease like everyone else in Tau.
>30 dollars for a 3 hour game
>>320886306
>Would you rather be removed from the simulation and die?
>Yes
>Doesn't immediately kill the Simon on the ARK
HACKS
>>320886557
it's 4 times that long playboy
>>320886557
>rushing through the game like a fag
>>320874551
i loved it
which is weird since i fucking hated amesia and machine for pigs
>>320876917
I like to think he was in denial. Human denial can be a powerful thing, deep down he knew he was never going to get out of there, that terrified him, he couldn't handle it.
I want more of the world, more lore, more environment to explore. It didn't feel long enough, I really enjoy how the world felt real (or authentic, whatever) and just interacting with it was enjoyable.
I liked how once you reached Tau, Ross ceases to be nearly as scary as first thought. Once you realise that he's not out to (immediately) kill you, his vision-fucking appearances almost become funny.
>get to Tau common room
>go into dispatch, close door behind me
>turn on radio screen, hear door open
>whip around fast
>oh, it's just Ross
>>320890684
Yeah I felt the same way. Like the screen distortions were just an inconvenience. His second to last appearance you can walk right up to him.
He must have known the second he saw his double still stuck in the first dive suit. Cat tries to explain the situation to him but he refuses to see the truth before him. I realized he was shafted from the second i heard the first divesuit still talking after the transfer. The game from that point forward was just telling the story of a doomed "person" trying to deny the situation.
>underwater horror
>mostly humanoid monsters
into the trash
>just started playing the game some minutes ago
>read this
awww shite niggerno spoilers plis
>>320890684
i left tau alive, fuck Ross
>>320894893
>SPOILERA comet rekts the planet
