This game is hugely disappointing (to me).

[tigerpoetry]

I suppose this post will make me very unpopular, but I really don't get it.

It's supposed to be scary...it isn't. I was bored witless. The monsters don't scare me, they're just a nuisance that means a heck of a lot of crawling around and hiding. I've played other games that get the adrenaline flowing to the point I've been physically shaking from adrenaline overdose...SOMA almost left me in a coma. It could be good to play before retiring to bed because it's certainly sleep inducing.

I know that I shouldn't whine about personal handicaps but I have a major problem with short term memory. I suppose I'm used to games with maps, mini maps, inventories to log quest progress and the like but for me, the lack of even the most basic functionality left me endlessly traversing the same old ground. I resorted to writing things down on paper because I had no way to review anything I'd previously discovered that may be relevant. I see why this has been done but a feature that you could turn on or off would help a lot of people. Even a hint feature for when you've been wandering around the same place for half an hour with no joy would be nice.

None of the reviews I read mentioned this aspect of the game, most of them passing comments about similarities with other games by the same developer (which I haven't played).

I bought it because I loved the vanishing of Ethan Carter, which was a psychological thriller type of game, but whereas 'the vanishing' was hauntingly beautiful and had an ending that I hadn't guessed, I've already sussed out the gist of the ending to SOMA and it left me cold. (I confirmed my guess by googling it)

Lots of people like it, so that's fair enough. I suppose I'm posting this so that others like me don't get the game by mistake. I'm certainly not trolling...it's just my opinion...I made a mistake buying SOMA.

I haven't got far in. I'm only on the ship trying to get Cath off (I think that's her name) to go to where the ARK project is but I've found it so tedious I can hardly play it for more than half an hour before I want to drop the controller and walk away...maybe it gets better if I stick at it?

Is it just me or was anybody else disappointed?

[76561198292631324]

Annoying monsters is a popular case, nonetheless the case of ambience, story flow, pace of game, the tension or lack of it, perhaps it needs to be discussed more.

[Citizen10Bears]

I wonder if you missed some stuff? If you click on the omnitool during a mission, you will often be reminded of what you should be doing. And the terminals have maps, clues, guidance. I'm going to guess that you are racing through and not savouring the game?

[Sticky Wicket]

The point of Soma is the story and the kind of questions it throws at you, so if you are just looking for a superficial scary action game then this is not that. Tbh I find it suprising that anyone could find this game bad and not get pulled into the games story and be affected by it. As Citizen says, I think you are probably just rushing though the game and oblivious to it's atmosphere and profound implications.....somehow?

[tigerpoetry]

hey,

I'm delighted that I haven't just been discredited for this post, because I was worried about that.

Citizen10Bears, from your comment I probably have missed some stuff, but SOMA doesn't exactly assist in this regard. I know that the terminals have maps and guidance, my point was that for someone with memory issues, these don't help. I rely on an inventory of sorts. I am interested in your comment about clicking on the omnitool...how? I've bought SOMA and maybe the reason for the post was partly because I want to understand what others are seeing but I'm not!

The Consumerist, I can get how there could be tension in the game if players progressed at a certain rate. When they (the players) get bogged down though, they have time to assess it. They can learn that the monsters don't actually harm them. This is human nature. For an example, it doesn't matter how many times I take on the crones as Ciri in the witcher 3, it's always hard. I know what's coming but I'm faced with a sense of dread...I've been left shaking. It's the same in tomb raider against the Yotunag...adrenaline overdose and total terror...I've only ever had such levels of adrenaline when falling off a motorbike at 120 mph+. SOMA doesn't give me that sense of jeopardy. For me, SOMA doesn't cut it. I find that a shame because the concept is good.

I'm still going to carry on with the game...everybody can be wrong.

[76561198292631324]

Originally posted by "tigerpoetry":

For an example, it doesn't matter how many times I take on the crones as Ciri in the witcher 3, it's always hard. I know what's coming but I'm faced with a sense of dread...I've been left shaking. It's the same in tomb raider against the Yotunag...adrenaline overdose and total terror...I've only ever had such levels of adrenaline when falling off a motorbike at 120 mph+. SOMA doesn't give me that sense of jeopardy. For me, SOMA doesn't cut it. I find that a shame because the concept is good.

I see that videogames give you the sense of real challenge and a field to test yourself, since you compare this artificial controlled environment experience to real life death threatening experience. It means the digital world must provide you with proper level of immersion, that it is somehow important, while actually it seems somewhat paradoxical, because environmentally speaking SOMA - according to popular conviction - is a very immersive game, asking dreadfully real philosophical questions. It should keep you interested, nonetheless since it fails, perhaps you pay attention to some more action related stimulus, which SOMA simply lacks, at least in most of the duration. It is a narrative exploration, mainly. It does relay on player memory and ability to connect pieces together, basing on what is being told and written. Maybe simply this kind of game is just too slow paced for you, since to be enjoyed, it does take a slower walk, grasping the depths.

[Airwave]

Originally posted by tigerpoetry:

I've played other games that get the adrenaline flowing to the point I've been physically shaking from adrenaline overdose.

What games did this?

[DeltaBlast]

I just completed the game and saw this thread and I must say I agree to some extent. Let me reply point by point:

"Scary" is a matter of opinion and is completely different from person to person and even within a person it changes with mindset and over time. When I first saw jurassic park I was scared poopless, now not at all. People say The Exorcist is scary but I find that movie dull as hell.
It's ok to not find this game scary.

The memory thing... I must agree that at certain points it's a bit hard to find your way, but other areas do have maps. Might I suggest keeping a walkthrough open in the steam overlay? I used one to check if I missed anything before I moved on, and sometimes it turns out I overlooked a note or even a body.

The ending and the rest of the story are indeed pretty straightforward. I don't get why people talk about profound implications and philosophical questions... it's really not rocket science what they're talking about (ok well it kind of is :p ).

Anyway, it seems like you do not enjoy the story (you seem to only barely know what you're doing), the scary parts don't scare you.. then all that's left is just a linear walking sim. So no, in that sense it doesn't get better if you stick at it.

As for myself: SOMA started off really scary for me because I played Amnesia years ago and that's what I expected (and the atmosphere played right into that). When the first monster turned out to be slow and deaf, it became a lot less scary. Still, I was on edge for most of the time and I both liked and disliked it.
The monsters get in the way of the story, but if you take them away it becomes obvious that there isn't much of a story anyway. So the game kind of needs them and I kind of liked being spooked all the time. Still it made exploring really tedious and annoying.

The game is extremely linear (there are a few choices but they have no influence on anything (and no, they're not hard philosophical choices, come on)) and there's no real skill involved (except for maybe having a working memory ;) and figuring out the (easy) monster patterns).

So I still don't know wether to like or dislike the game. I think it gave me enough enjoyment for the (sale) price, but imo it definitely doesn't deserve all the high praise. Although I do not know how one could make a better game within the same genre/mechanics. So meh, I'm conflicted :p

[Kuplung]

I just purely hated the long crawls on the bed of the ocean. Also, not being able to kill the damn things made me furious. Couldn't check out everything. Couldn't read every memo. Couldn't immerse yourself into the environment enough. Just rush through it.

I just run 20 fckin times around the corridors to get rid of the bastard. AND LEAVE ME ALONE TO THINK! fck sake. So annoying.

[tigerpoetry]

I find myself enjoying the responses to the thread more than the game.

deltablast, in particular. I guess we're finding the same ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I want to like the game but something is holding me back...would that be fair?

The Consumerist, you are right that games have to give me a challenge. I was not joking when I said I came off a motorbike at 120 mph+. the reason I put it so vaguely is that I never looked at the clocks before I made the decision to jump out of the saddle (nobody does)...I do know that I went into the corner at over 130 mph because that's the speed that the right-hand foot peg slammed into the tarmac, and it did on that day. (I was young and stupid but wow was it good)

You could have a point that I seek similar thrills in games. It may also explain why I don't find the odd beast or machine too terrifying on a screen.

That aside, as you say, I want to be tested and this game doesn't do it for me...yet...I'm still prepared to try it again. It must have something.

Airwave, you asked what games left me shaking. Witcher 3, playing Ciri on deathmarch against the crones. Witcher 3 again, a quest called...darn...I really can't remember...I've looked it up...extreme cosplay...damn but that's just terrifyingly hard.

Also, Airwave, I'm not just citing fight scenes...other games get me scared in non-violent scenes because I imagine myself being there. All tomb raider games from the 1980's (and yes, I played them on PS!, then just known as the playstation). That moment when you jump off a ledge and know that it'll mean death if you fail...to this day I always twitch violently in my seat when my character makes the leap of faith!

I don't get the sense that I am the character in SOMA...it seems like what it is...a fake reality meant to con me, but doesn't.

So far, SOMA does not make me feel engaged.

[76561198292631324]

@ DeltaBlast, my experience with SOMA is far other than yours in the way that we seem to value the same fragments of the game differently. I mean, for example the philosophically inclined decisions to be made. Certainly I can recall one clear example. The things characters talk about, they talk about it plainly, but what is it that they talk about in the circumnstances valid, is another deal and it impacts the mind of the player who could ask the same questions in own world of life, making own sense of it, which makes the game more than just digital - it is mental, so to say. About the exploration being dull, well, to me this is the essence, I could just go and explore all the day long, learning new things, putting pieces together, immersing into the ambience. Monsters are okay as far as they are part of the ambience, while in SOMA they are unfortunately mishandled, this is what the developers got wrong, but we are all mostly clear about that. Thing to learn from for the future. Game is linear, yes, but with given level of story sophistication - because it is very rich - it is forgivable, such as we would forgive a book for being linear in contents. Eventually, you can bend the game to different interpretations of your own, making sort of multiple endings depending on perception on what happened.

[DeltaBlast]

Explore all day long along a linear path you mean :P
If you can only follow the path, how is it exploring? Along the path you can open drawers to find stuff, or click on bodies and recordings... but that's about it. Sure, one could rush past all that, but that doesn't mean that the opposite is exploring. To me, exploring is walking around in a big world, finding stuff off the beaten path. Like finding small little quests in World of Warcraft, or some old house with a little story of its own in Skyrim. SOMA doesn't have exploring, only following the narrative properly, or rushing by it.

As for the philosophical questions and story sophistication: come on, it all boils down to this: There's a super AI that can learn to improve itself. The world ends. The AI tries to save humanity, but doesn't know how, so it tries a ton of different things, some of which turn out to have the opposite effect. Also, because it's an AI, it doesn't quite understand what makes humans human. One of the things it tries is combining existing tech (making brainscans) with a virtual world (the vivarium). Then catherine thinks "oh nice we can totally rip that off to send copies of us into space". Then all the other surviving humans are completely retarded and do not understand the idea of "copy" (see also http://somagame.com/item-4520.html ).
Then everyone dies. Then a copy of Simon is made, who is also retarded. Luckily a copy of Catherine survived and tells Simon what to do. Who then does it. The end.

The only phyilosophical things about this are "what makes you you, is a copy also you, what makes you human". The answers: you are your living body (including your brain(memories)). A copy of you is not you, it's a copy. From the copy's perspective, (s)he's you, but a copy. At least Catherine understood all this. There's no such thing as a "coin toss", that just shows that one sucks at understanding. If I were to make a copy of me, I'd expect to come out in the chair. If I were to continue on in a simulation, I would know that I were a copy. That's it. The end. Is that really a deep philosophical question? Maybe when you're 14 or something.
Oh and "what makes you human"? Well, human is a word we made up for the combination of body and brain. If your brain were to go into a robot body, you'd be an android or some other word we'd find for that.
It's like "what came first, the chicken or the egg?": the egg, the chicken evolved from it's previous form and didn't have a name in that form. But it still came from an egg. The first creature to be called chicken still came from an egg.

Edit: apparently steam thinks retarded is an offensive word. AFAIK it's the correct word for mentally challenged, but whatever.

[76561198292631324]

Originally posted by " ":

Explore all day long along a linear path you mean :P
If you can only follow the path, how is it exploring? Along the path you can open drawers to find stuff, or click on bodies and recordings...

SOMA has rich enough environments to provide that little piece of exploring I want, the datalogs, the vistas, the screenshots I can make along the way, until I feel it is time to kill something. I have traversed the mountaintops submerged in open sea, as well as explored where the big marine rails end. SOMA is surprisingly open but beyond the fixed path it is empty. Regarding the rest of the stuff you talk, I find it redundant to discuss, if you just want to dislike the game in terms you describe, fine that, but it means you basically discredit the genre or style, because SOMA is one of the best games out there in the category it represents.

[Jackson]

Originally posted by tigerpoetry:

Is it just me or was anybody else disappointed?

Just look at the reviews. You'll see it's almost entirely (but not quite exclusively) just you!

[76561198292631324]

I think here and there people have ado with the game but the overall effect makes them give the game ultimately a good review, which is, in their memory the good outweight the bad, but certainly if you would ask them given chosen moment they could produce some criticism.

[tigerpoetry]

Originally posted by Jack:

Originally posted by tigerpoetry:

Is it just me or was anybody else disappointed?

Just look at the reviews. You'll see it's almost entirely (but not quite exclusively) just you!

I haven't looked but I'll take your word for it...it still surprises me.

I've now finished it and it didn't get a lot better. It was just a slog to the end, which wasn't overwhelming. I suppose I played it to the end to see if it got better and to answer any critics of my opinion who may suggest that I didn't give it a chance.

There were some nice touches in the game but not enough to change my mind. I'd not say it was terrible overall....but in no way could I say it was good.

I think I'd better post a review and alter that statistic slightly! I tjust goes to show that we're all different.

The consumerist, I agree. You could find fault with any game, in the same way that you could find fault with any person.

Thanks for all the comments, people.