Renzatic on 25/9/2015 at 20:03
Bet you'll see it down $10 for the Steam Winter Sale.
Renault on 25/9/2015 at 20:49
The original, pre-release discount was only three bucks, so quit yer crying.
Gryzemuis on 26/9/2015 at 01:29
Just finished "the descent". I guess I'm 75% done now. I'll finish the last quarter tomorrow.
I'm really enjoying the parts without monsters. But when there are monsters, they are irritating me more than scaring me. I guess I enjoy adventure/mystery/sci-fi/walking-simulator/exploring/listening in horror games. I just don't enjoy the running from monsters. :) The story is ok so far. Sci-fi concepts that I've read about in my dad's sci-fi books when I was 10 years old. But it's ok. I've seen a lot worse in computer-games. I hope the last quarter has a few good surprises left.
Volitions Advocate on 26/9/2015 at 17:45
Just finished!
Quote Posted by Renzatic
Yeah, I could see that concerning Catherine. Though the game still didn't answer a couple of questions I have, mainly concerning Simon. We know the WAU put him there, but not how it was able to do so, considering his brain scan was merely a rough template compared to the more complete "modern" scans, or why it took extra effort in reviving him, basically putting a robotic head on top of a human body, grafting them together with the gel, and sealing it all inside a pressure suit.
Quote Posted by van HellSing
As to why he has this unique status, I got that the WAU is constantly experimenting, constantly searching for ways to preserve humans. Simon was just another try. "Hey, here's this somewhat usable body, and oh, there's this brain scan lying around. Could work!"There are a still some unanswered questions though.
the Detachment that Catherine shows to the scans when you're trying to interrogate Wan just speaks to her nature as a techie who, while she might not get along with people very well, can accept her situation. She understands it without letting her metaphysical thoughts cloud her purpose. Still, I have no idea why you weren't able to take the chip with those scans on it with you while you continued on from Theta to find the ARK. I wonder why there was no option, or that Catherine woudln't have suggested it, or that Simon wouldn't have, especially with how he felt about the whole scenario. You get the option to detroy the disk, or leave it intact, why not take it with you?Which leads me to the crux of what I THOUGH the game was about...
your choices. I know that there were different ways to get past each puzzle. Before I realized I was a robot, I didn't care too much about the robots I ran into, I unplugged the one that was hooked into the console at the powerplant in Upsilon, According to a devblog somewhere out there, if you approach that situation differently, you wont be attacked by the Monster, I also let the robot on the tracks suffer as I rerouted his power to the com station. I wonder if the effects of your choices are only immediate, as in you get attacked or you don't, OR, if it means something about the whole story arch other than a few different dialoge sequences and how you, the player, personally feel about the situation. I didn't kill amy, but I did take half her power for the shuttle. If I took all the power does that mean the shuttle woudln't crash? Or does it have bigger implications later on in the game? Or the bot just outside the door to Theta. I left her alone, but I could have disconnected her, I wonder what the point of that would have been. Or how things might have played out differently if I didn't drain Simon's battery after the transfer to the deep diving suit. I don't know if these choices altered the ending of the game or not. Or how about killing the WAU, what if you decide not to? Ross would probably have been all over you at that point, but was that the ONLY consequence?Quote Posted by Renzatic
Harry Potter ololokay.. I laughed. :P
Quote Posted by Renzatic
I loved that scene, too. I don't want to get too spoily for the people who haven't played it yet, so I'll just say it's the first time I've ever seen depth of field put to such great effect.
did the
angler fish get you? It got me. Was so mad, but at the same time I have to applaud them for putting that bit in once you emerge
from the sea spider caves and start walking toward the light. Clever, I fell for it.
I want to replay it again... later. and make some different decisions and see what happens.
Renault on 26/9/2015 at 17:45
Finally finished it - great game, just really enjoyed the story/narrative and the whole experience. The only bummer is that now I have to wait another five years for a new Frictional game. :(
The ending - surprisingly straightforward. I had expected a whole bunch of twists and turns and betrayals and stuff like that, but in the end, you simply fire the ark off into space and the game ends. I don't want to say I'm disappointed, but I did expect more after reading reviews that talk about "that shocking ending!" Not sure what that was all about. I was convinced that at some point Catherine was going to betray Simon and/or you find out you've been completing tasks for the WAU all along for some nefarious purpose. Something like that anyway..
Near the end too, part me was thinking - why bother destroying the WAU? There's no one left on the entire planet to care anyway. But I assume it was to release the crew members who had been assimilated into it and allow them to die naturally (although that's something that Simon could have taken care of too. "Left behind Simon" would have had plenty of time to do it.)..
I think there's still the whole question of why the WAU created Simon/robot in the first place, especially when it should have realized that he could one day be a threat to him. But I guess I'll buy the argument that the WAU was just trying to sustain or maintain any last bits of human life in some way.
Anyway, awesome game, I wish more devs were creating stuff like Frictional is.
Gryzemuis on 27/9/2015 at 02:26
I finished the game.
I liked it.
The monsters were still irritating, but the further you get, the less monsters there are.
How do you guys know that it was the WAU that spawned Simon ? I don't remember hearing or reading any clues about that. But then, I didn't figure out who the guy was that wanted to kill the WAU either. .
How did you know it was Ross who was talking to you like a ghost ? Was he just a revived corpse like you yourself ? If he was just that, how could he teleport around, even between stations ? Or project himself, or how could he speak to you via telepathy ? I found that part confusing. Or actually non-consistent to a good sci-fi story. Oh, he also filled in a keycode on a computer for me. He must have been a witch. :)
I didn't destroy the WAU. I was afraid that if I used my body, or the gel in my body, to poison the WAU, it would kill me. And then I couldn't launch the ARK. I myself would not have cared much for launching the ARK. It's an interesting concept, but without any way to escape later, or contact others outside the ARK, it wouldn't have had much point imho. But for the sake of the game, I wanted to make sure I would launch the ARK. So I thought this was a point in the game where you had to make an important decision: sacrifice yourself to kill WAU, or let WAU live and save humanity. It now seems you could do both .... Less interesting than I thought it was.
Just like Brethren, I thought the ending was surprisingly straightforward. After the launch of the ARK, the whole launching-installation went dark. For a moment I thought there was an electrical malfunction (or mechanical). And that the ARK had not launched, the launcher was broken, and Simon was stuck at the bottom of the ocean in an indestructible body. Again, the game was less bleak than that. :)
When I first heard about this new game called Soma, for some reason I linked it to Huxley's Brave New World. However, I just realized that Soma is a word in ancient Greek. I guess that link makes much more sense.
The best thing about the game was in the credits. The amount of people who worked at this game was pretty small. Just a few dozen. That is hopeful. I really enjoyed Soma. And I thought the quality was quite high. I believe GTA V cost $300M to make (maybe half of it development, the other half marketing). The Witcher 3 costed $15M (without marketing). Soma must have been a lot cheaper. And because of continuous development in hardware, software, tools, etc, it should become cheaper and cheaper to develop games. I was slightly afraid that all games would be dumbed-down for kids and for larger audiences. But Soma proves again that we're probably gonna keep getting smaller "indie" games that still have an excellent level of quality.
Tangiers next. Exactly 2 months away from today. I hope it will be another worthwile "indie" game.
Volitions Advocate on 27/9/2015 at 03:37
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
How do you guys know
that it was the WAU that spawned Simon ? I don't remember hearing or reading any clues about that. But then, I didn't figure out who the guy was that wanted to kill the WAU either. .
How did you know it was Ross who was talking to you like a ghost ? Was he just a revived corpse like you yourself ? If he was just that, how could he teleport around, even between stations ? Or project himself, or how could he speak to you via telepathy ? I found that part confusing. Or actually non-consistent to a good sci-fi story. Oh, he also filled in a keycode on a computer for me. He must have been a witch. :)well...
Honestly I still didn't figure out that it was the WAU that created Simon, I just sort of came to that conclusion with the discussion here and I think it's a good one. At first I was thinking maybe it was Reed herself who attempted it, but I don't really see much by way of evidence for that. It must have been the WAU, because of what I said before regarding Ross. Which brings me to your 2nd question. If you read all the logs and listen to all the recordings in Omicron you learn that Ross left Tau to come to Omicron and basically died in the attempt. The Omicron staff find him and try to save him but fail, and then the WAU takes every opportunity it can to break him free from the quarantine they put him in (in the "glass jar" on the mid level) The WAU tried desperately to re-animate him with the corrupted Structural Gel, but the staff hampered everything. I don't remember exactly but I think you learn that he sent some messages ahead about de-contaminating the Gel or making the anti-WAU Gel before he arrived, and they were successful in creating it, But later, in Alpha when Ross is speaking to you directly, he tells you how frustrating it was that they made it and stuck it in a cabinet, The same cabinet you raided to get the Gel for your deep dive suit. somebody chime in if you think I missed something. EDIT: Oh right regarding
Ross' apparent supernatural powers. *shrugs* You got me. I wondered that myself, obviously he can hack the systems on Pathos II, so maybe he can partially influence your perceptions.. since you're a robot and all.Quote:
When I first heard about this new game called Soma, for some reason I linked it to Huxley's Brave New World. However, I just realized that Soma is a word in ancient Greek. I guess that link makes much more sense.
I thought of the same thing when I first heard of the game. Given the content I think it still has a connection to Brave New World. Soma being the drug that you'd take while you were in the Hospice to conveniently set aside reality in order to die when life was no longer worth living. I think it has a place when looking at the themes of the game.
Gryzemuis on 27/9/2015 at 13:18
Quote Posted by Volitions Advocate
Soma being the drug that you'd take while you were in the Hospice to conveniently set aside reality in order to die when life was no longer worth living. I think it has a place when looking at the themes of the game.
That's not how I remembered it. (I read the book 35 years ago). The Wiki page suggests my memory was right: everybody was taking Soma all the time, to stay happy and relaxed.
Quote Posted by Renzatic
Well, that and the fact a bunch of very smart people decided to
build their giant ass space railgun on the bottom of an abyssal plain that's incredibly dangerous to reach even in normal circumstances. But I'm able to forgive that due to rule of cool.I can see a logical explanation for that.
Suppose you want to build a
space railgun. It must be a certain size, so the projectile can build velocity, right ? Say 6-7km. And it must be straight, not bend, or else the friction might slow you down. And it must point upwards, otherwise you won't escape earth. If it points upwards, the exit of the barrel must be higher than the entrance. According to the game, the exit must be 4km higher than the entrance. If you build that barrel on land, you have to support it. Which means you'll have to build a supporting structure 4km up in the air. Expensive. But if you build the barrel in water, it can float, and you don't need to build a structure to support it. You just have to make sure the barrel is very rigid. However, if you put the barrel in water, and the exit is at sea-level, that means the entrance needs to be 4km deep.Now what bothers me more is, if you go to all that trouble, why
build a barrel that is only 70cm in diameter ? You can't even launch a human via that barrel. Too small for a spaceship or spaceshuttle. It seemed even too small for a current-day satellite.The biggest problem with the logical/technical aspects of the game-world is
the structure gel. If I understood correctly, the structure gel was in all the walls of the buildings of Pathos-2. To automatically repair the walls if there was a breach. Cool, I can believe that. Then suddenly one day, the gel can not only repair walls, it can also repair computer parts and electronic parts. And it can even repair dead human bodies. For some reason, I found that a bit hard to believe. When playing games, or reading sci-fi stories, you always have to "accept" some ideas and axioms about new technology or new insights. But some of those I can believe (e.g. traveling forwards in time), and others my mind just refuses to accept (e.g. traveling backwards in time). This
black magic goo was the only thing I kept having problems with. :)
Volitions Advocate on 27/9/2015 at 15:44
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
That's not how I remembered it. (I read the book 35 years ago). The Wiki page suggests my memory was right: everybody was taking Soma all the time, to stay happy and relaxed.
Yes you're right. I think the hospice just stuck out in my mind more than the rest. But I do remember there being a place where you would just go to die, because who wants to be old? And you would basically live in a Soma coma until you passed away. Its been about 7 or 8 years since I read it, but that doesn't mean my memory is better than yours. That's just what I remember specifically. After Bernard brings back the lady from the reservation who fathered the one guys baby (scandalous!!), all she wanted to do was die back in civilisation, iirc. I could be completely wrong, maybe I should read it again.
