chk772 on 20/8/2020 at 08:41
SOMA is not bad, but, IMO it really shows that it's a indie production. I also got kind of annoyed after a few hours that all you could do is run and not kill the enemies. IMO, it's rather like a mystery adventure movie kind of thing than being anything like System Shock (SOMA doesn't have any RPG elements either). Prey was much more like it.
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Niborius on 20/8/2020 at 12:42
Quote Posted by chk772
I played it very late after release. Jolly good ride though. One of the absolute best in terms of atmosphere. Quality soundtrack. Way ahead of its time, just like Deus Ex. Unfortunately, they don't make intelligent games like that anymore. Or let developers and artists dwell in such a creative freedom. It's all about the production costs. Understandable, considering how much more effort it is to make games these days. Unfortunately, but, that's how it goes. Just like with movies, strict cookie-cutter approach.
Yea the soundtrack is good, although sometimes I find it a bit odd there is this super hyperactive song playing and then moments later it's back to eerie music again. It's still works with the game's atmosphere but I like the eerie background music more. Makes me wonder if I'm alone in that opinion
Edit:
This track in particular: (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bL7I_eWryI)
It's good, but a bit unexpected sometimes
ZylonBane on 20/8/2020 at 14:23
Quote Posted by chk772
SOMA is not bad, but, IMO it really shows that it's a indie production. I also got kind of annoyed after a few hours that all you could do is run and not kill the enemies.
You: "I want intelligent games with creative freedom."
Also you: "But wah I wanna be able to shoooot things!"
Valet2 on 20/8/2020 at 17:07
I played it in 1999. It was sooo so cool! After Half-Life it felt clunky, but being in a semi-open world, walking through all places numerous times because there is something left to hack, or keeping the loot in some quiet rooms where you can take a break and plan your next moves. I've played through the game so many times, and even now, with a huge 4K display (had to increase fov accordingly) it's still awesome like before.
Only few games felt that good. The first Deus Ex, the latest Prey, SOMA, Alien Isolation... and Fallout New Vegas.
I really tried to play other immersive sim games (like Dishonored, Bioshock, new Deus Ex), and I really hated them even though completed all on hardest difficulty.
heywood on 20/8/2020 at 18:08
I don't get the hype around SOMA. The gameplay was mostly walking sim & generic adventure game puzzle fare. A lot of it was pretty linear too. The watered down stealth/evasion gameplay that they included to add tension and fear didn't do much for me. Avoiding the monsters wasn't particularly scary or rewarding, it was just tedious and didn't really seem necessary; this could have been just an adventure game. The moral choices felt empty to me, in part because they didn't have consequences, and in part because they didn't seem that morally ambiguous (at least to me). A good example is Amy. They could have made the decision meaningful: kill her and take the shuttle in safety, or leave her alive and walk the ocean floor in danger. But they didn't. It makes no difference. I suspect most players either killed everyone or left everyone alive and came to that decision early on. I also found myself really wishing for dialogue choices, because I felt like I was stuck playing a dunce.
It does have a well written plot, but it's derivative. All the elements and premises have been done before multiple times over in sci-fi. So I don't see what's so creative about it. The Many in SS2 isn't the most original idea in a game, but it's more original than anything in SOMA. If there is one thing I'd praise the game for, it's the detail in the environments.
ZylonBane on 20/8/2020 at 18:36
None of the decisions in Soma having in-game consequences is precisely the point. This allows them to be pure expressions of the player's morality.
chk772 on 20/8/2020 at 18:47
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
You: "I want intelligent games with creative freedom."
Also you: "But wah I wanna be able to shoooot things!"
So? Both things don't exclude each other.
Maybe you didn't understand what I meant. I meant the creative freedom of the developers. Not the one of the player.
I also don't think that just because you can shoot things it makes for a dumb game.
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heywood on 21/8/2020 at 01:15
The problem with the example I gave is that it's pointless. It serves no gameplay purpose and no narrative purpose. In any reasonably immersive and believable fiction, you'd have a conversation with Amy about her predicament and what options exist to resolve it and what her wishes are. But nope, the game doesn't let you do what any actual person would do. The game just presents you with a random woman and asks "Do you want to kill her? (Y/N)?" It's an annoyingly contrived forced choice, it has no consequences, and the game denies you enough information to make it interesting or morally ambiguous. So it's just as empty as the surveys. The other encounters are like that too, with the exception of Carl, where your decision determines whether the construct spawns. But even in that case, at the moment you make the decision, you're not asked to weigh your own needs against his suffering. So again, it's an empty choice.
All of these decisions in the game are really just one decision. Do you wipe out the last remains of humanity out of mercy because they are stuck in a nightmare situation, or do you leave them alive, either because you can't bring yourself to kill, or out of desperate hope that maybe, someday, they can be rescued or at least improve their situation. That's the whole game in a nutshell and it's kind of obvious from the very first encounter. Once you've made that decision, it's rinse and repeat because the game just keeps asking the same fundamental question over and over.
Another thing that insulted my intelligence is that right after the intro you ought to know (or can pretty well guess) that you're a cyborg but Simon plays stupid for far too long before the game reveals what is already obvious. I think most fans of sci-fi will notice the plot is just one trope after another and it's predictable. People hyped up the story so much that I kept waiting for a twist that would surprise me or make me think "oh, that's clever" and it never came. Likewise, it was said the game would make you think about morality, but I found it to be shallower than even Bioshock in that respect.
ZylonBane on 21/8/2020 at 05:20
Hey guys I spotted the flat neurograph.
Pyrian on 21/8/2020 at 05:34
Maybe critique his interpretation rather than delivering a straight ad hominem.
Get it? Get it? "flat neurograph" = "straight" ad hominem?