SOMA Thread
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I've just completed SOMA last night. What are your thoughts on it /v/? If you've played it, what were the most memorable moments of your gameplay?
Also, general SOMA thread, all questions / comments are welcome.
It was pretty cool.
I liked how what you expect to be the big twist is actually just the preliminary setup. There are way too many plots that hinge on a singular trick that isn't explored properly in any way, so Soma was really satisfying in that regard.
As a game it had some flaws. I didn't mind the monsters, but it really felt like they had to be there 'cause it's what people expected. Many of the puzzles were also pretty uninspired.
I think it should have focused more on trying to come up with a satisfying gameplay formula and less on trying to deliver its plot using the usual Frictional formula.
>tfw no good outcome possible
what a shitty worldWHAT THE FUCK CATHERINE WE'RE STILL HERE ?
Meme game
Penumbra > Amnesia > Soma
they keep managing to degrade in quality
>>321042704
This guy gets it. If I wanted to watch autistic robots shamble around my screen I'd video call OP on skype.
>>321042956
>Smithers agrees with Mr. Snrub.htm
>>321042508
>>tfw no good outcome possiblethe 'real world' ending was really sad. I was pretty confused that after the credits they've showed us what was going on in the ARK - I couldn't decide whether I was happy or sad because what the f*ck just happened. also, that survey.. how do you feel now.. ugh. brilliant.
>>321042508
Well the earth is shit no matter what, so considering the circumstances I found the ending after the credits to be kinda satisfying. You managed to do exactly what you were trying to do after all.
>>321042704
i think they're trying / experimenting with different kinds of styles. it wasn't disappointing for me, even after amnesia or penumbra. you can't keep going with making exactly the same type of game all the time. After all, this isn't CoD.
it was pretty fun, especially after the whole arg thing.
game itself was less of a survival horror than i expected it to be, but at least it compensated with its story and some pretty good atmospherics.
i enjoyed it
>>321044992
IT'S THE WEIGHT OF THE SEA
I really enjoyed it. Simon was a dummy for not seeing the ending coming.
I loved this game. Just played it in the right mood, I think. It just resonated with me really, really well.The ending made me scared a little and very sad.
>>321048086Catherine?! ...Please don't leave me alone...
It hits you hard man.
>>321047862
>Simon was a dummy for not seeing the ending coming
I don't really understand why he couldn't foresee what's gonna happen,since it _already_ happened, when he got copied to his new body. He was too naive.
>>321049059It's half him holding onto the only glimmer of hope he had, half him operating with a mind that was already damaged when he was scanned
Any jump scares in this game?
>>321041317
>tfw my pc can't run SOMA
>tfw too poor to afford a better gaming pc
>mfw
>>321049661
A few; not too many.
>>321046048
god that shit was awful
>>321050228
I will never get tired of the first minute or so of this episode
https://youtu.be/fhmWWVqkdHE
>that weak as fuck tackle
>absolutely no weight given to dudes punches
>that scream
>>321049059
From that Simon's perspective he transferred every time so he assumed he would this time too.
>>321050575
I'm glad I never bothered watching that shit
Was shit up until the deep sea area. That shit was great.
>>321051286
I just watched it out of curiosity. You can tell the shorts were based on an early version of the games story because there are tons of things that contradict the game.
Got pretty far into the game (think it was called Theta station) and my game started crashing randomly out of fucking nowhere. Haven't played since. I really liked the atmosphere, the setting and exploration though.
>>321051340
The entire game takes place in the deep sea.
>>321050575
is this the movie they were supposed to release?
>get ready to be transferred into the suit that can go into the deep
>fall asleep
>wake up
>place is gone to shit
>structure gel growing on everything
>catherine is gone
>omnitool is gone
>can hear some monster banging on the door
>>321052093
You left him. How could you do that?
The story is bloody fascinating. Love the concept. The gameplay is pretty weak though. Even as a fan of survival horror there's nothing really exceptional here, nothing that wasn't done better in Penumbra. Just kind of mediocre overall. Soma is like the perfect game to just watch a walkthrough of and not bother actually playing yourself.
>>321049221
that is true, very true. I didn't consider this yet.
>>321051198I'd say he didn't get transferred, he got copied. the original 'copies' were left behind, always.
The first copy (which woke up at PATHOS-II) was lucky, that he was put to sleep just after his copy got transferred. You had the choice to kill him or not. I believe the right decision was to kill him (literally no reason to leave him alive in this living hell).
The second copy wasn't lucky, his mind got copied to the ARK, but since he was the original, he had to stay there. So he finally understood what it means to be left behind, and be the 'original'.
The third copy didn't really get that the second copy (his original) stayed behind, and it was fine. But anyways, that's why I think that the 'coin flipping' makes little or no sense. A Simon always stayed behind, and another moved on.. two Simons existed for a certain time, the game's makers made the person switching. It was a brilliant idea.
so why did the WAU decide to kill everyone
>>321051835
Man, the sunken ship part was annoying. The teleporter guy always knew the room i was in then stood there for almost a minute, then left. If i tried to move, most of the times he would come running back and stand for almost another minute. Then in the machine room it managed to kill me right after the standing up animation ended, then the second time he never catched up.
Overall i would have liked that there not be any enemies at all and instead more and harder puzzles. Because all enemies were either blind and deaf or an annoyance, not challenging. the only ones i liked were those blind freaks in that one place.
>>321053267They didn't kill anyone, they were acting on their prime directive as the Warden Unit to preserve humanity. Once the comet hit Earth, it went into overdrive to ensure the humanity on Pathos-II survived, although as an AI, it's definition of "human" and "living" were flawed. It can be inferred that this is why Simon's scan was put into Imogen Reed's body in the first place, she tried to shut off the thermal generators in the first area, so it retaliated by creating something to help turn them back on.
It's been a bit since I played the game so some details might be off
>>321053267If i remember correctly, WAU tried to forcibly keep everyone alive.
>>321053267After humanity's downfall (due to the comet), WAU has decided to change its own protocols, its own function. Also, he didn't really understand what it means 'to be alive'. So he started to reprogram the Structure Gel, in order to create what it thought was 'life'. It started to grow out all across PATHOS-II devouring machine and humans. It didn't really think it's killing, but preserving humanity's faith.. The end doesn't justify the means.
Another thing was what happened at Omicron. Once Ross went to Omicron, and after the WAU revived him, Ross started to manipulate the crew through Herber. WAU took this as a plot against its existence, so it made all the blackboxes (built into the crew's brains) explode
>>321041317
Way better than Amnesia because the story was far more engaging. I can see some people liking Amnesia better because it is more "spooky". On my part this kind of horror does nothing for me, so Soma was the stronger game.
>>321054307
agreed
>>321041317
>all that deep sea part near the end of the game
I was terrified as hell.
The concept of the game was pretty interesting, shocking and kinda sad. I liked this game.
>>321042118
>I liked how what you expect to be the big twist is actually just the preliminary setup
I also really liked this. Instead of making it the big epic twist at the end to make you go "OH SHIT", they made the twist obvious from the get go and outright revealed you halfway through the game.
It was more about the point and implications of the plot than it was about being a big reveal.
Really, the only big reveal twist is when the first mind swap happens before they go down into the abyss, and even then I can't believe I fell for it. I should have seen it coming.
>>321042704
Amnesia is the scariest
Soma is the most interesting and coolest
You're crazy for thinking Penumbra is overall better in any way to Amnesia or Soma
>>321041317
I cant be the only one who wanted to stick my dick in this
>>321053003
The coin flipping concept was invented in Simon's mind. It was never how it worked and no scientist ever used that term.
It's simple. Are you the person with the conscience right now? If so, when you make a copy, the next copy won't have your conscience.
It's a chain of copies, not some kind of weird schrondiger's conscience bullshit
>>321055657
yeah it's a weird bullshiet indeed, but still awesome
>>321055657
are you saying all copys are different people???
>>321055838
Depends on what you mean by people.
If you make a copy of yourself, there will be a new conscience inside that copy, but that copy will still be an extension of you, it will have all the memories you have and all the thoughts you have from the point it was copied.
But it won't be you, it will be another you you cannot control.
>>321055838
they're the same Simon, but they aren't. They have the same memories, personality, everything. They're still different, they're copies. >>321056000 this Anon gets it.
>>321056191
>>321056000
interesting.
Heres a thought, is it really a 50/50 chance of ending up in the right Simon? ie the one who wakes up in the ARK?
Like what decides what Simon your conscious wakes up in? is it completely random?
>>321056687
there is no science behind it because we havent witnessed anything like it
>>321042636
Meme boy
>>321056687
No. You wake up in the ark but another you stay in your body. Both are you, but you are separate
>>321056687
There is zero chance of ending up in the right Simon, that Simon is a different person
It really messed with my head thinking about the whole 'copy' thing, and how it's based around the flip of a coin. It's literally as if the coin landed on both sides. The Simon left at the bottom of the ocean is complaining that he lost the flip, whereas the Simon on the ARK (who is pretty much the same Simon as ocean-man) won the coin toss. Both instances of the scan were completely oblivious to the fate of the other copy, if you look at it from the perspective of Simon. The outcome of the game and whether or not it is a 'good' or 'bad' ending is entirely dependent on which copy of Simon the narrative chooses to follow. There is always going to be a good ending, and there is always going to be a bad ending.
>>321057564
So before the copy, the outcome of which simon you will be is predetermined??
I get your point, they are different people, but they are not different people before the scan, they are one person.
>>321056810 anon is right, we cant know the chances or if there are any because we have never seen anything like it.
>need to transfer into a suit that can whitstand the pressure in the abyss
>jump into the abyss, the pressure breaks your unbreakable suit
>lose your fucking arm in the abyss, you are perfectly fine
Explain.
>>321042636
Fuck off!
>>321049661
None.
>>321052360
Wrong.
>>321054528
I thought it gave the ending parts of the game a more dreadful feeling; like you could never turn back and were trapped in some infinite hell of sorts.
>>321062093
well, yeah, you can't turn back (no omnitool, no Cathrine, nothing just the Abyss with the hungry fish). But what Catherine said is that the Simon copies are running on batteries. So after a time, maybe a couple of months, the second Simon will run out of power and eventually die.
But yeah, I'm pretty sure that the second Simon would go crazy after the ARK left. Probably suicide like the others, or something even worse.. maybe becoming the new WAU? Who knows...
>>321058053
It's not a flip of the coin. I guess they used it because of The Prestige, in that case it was appropriate because since nobody really knew what the machine exactly did nobody could possibly know which was the "original" and which was the "copy".
In SOMA instead there is no possible chance or mystery, if you go into the machine then you are the original, and the one at the other end is the copy, because it works like a computer.
>>321063418
Yeah, I agree. The way I see it is that the reason the player thinks of themselves as the "real" Simon is because that is the perspective of the narrative. In reality, the "real" Simon died 100 years ago.
>>321059947
>killing WAU
You deserved being left down there to rot.
