Soma

[Hendo]

Just done a shopping list of 3 things and carried out the end result. I chose drain.

At this point there's a couple of ways I think it can go.

One is that Catherine is actually the Wau itself making you do bad deeds. Possibly trying to get onto the ARK to infect it and destroy what's left of humanity.

Another is to build towards your inevitable "suicide", same as all the others. I think Simon's reaction to there being another him at the same time was the same as the reanimated rat that killed the real rat and then went on its business of being a rat.

I might get it finished tomorrow before work.

[DisturbedSwan]

You've bought up a lot of shit I hadn't even considered there, Duck, wow, what a fucking deep game.

Never in my life did I think a Video Game would have me

pondering my own human existance and the meaning of life

absolutely incredible.

[Hendo]

I may never finish this now, found myself a game breaking bug.

At the bottom of the ocean, found the door to Tau and can't get in because the omni tool won't come up in the bit where you have to swipe it. Googled it and others have had the same problem.

Edit: fixed it. Had a reload a much earlier save and re-do.

[Hendo]

Ending stuff:

So I thought it was pretty much understood that the real Simon had died, the Simon you played as for most of it was a digital copy whose memory stopped when he got scanned, then you were a copy of that copy. Then you got copied again which went to the Ark and the last copy stayed behind and would inevitably die or commit suicide.

I played the whole thing killing all the robots when I had a choice because to me they weren't human.

The last Simon on the bottom wasn't Simon, neither was the one on the Ark. Unless I'm missing something, the Ark was pretty much a virtual environment anyway - they weren't physically walking around anywhere, nor did they have the bodies they thought they had.

I'm not sure who the other character at the end was. Was it the Wau trying to get you to do its bidding? Or was the Wau hidden in Catherine? Getting you to launch the Wau's agenda into space?

Would anything in the game change if you did some things differently? Like I killed everyone and wiped all the data on all characters I could (including Simon), answered the questionnaires a certain way.

I really enjoyed it. It reminded me of Alien Isolation but without that game's ridiculous length, which really put me off carrying on with it.

I might go back through again, now I know how some of the puzzles and environments work and can probably whizz through pretty quick.

[DisturbedSwan]

I really enjoyed Alien Isolation as well, it was my GOTY for 2014, it was just as good as this I think and only lasted a few more hours I believe, SOMA is better in some ways, Alien:Isolation is better in some ways, both similar games with similar pedigrees in my mind.

[Duck]

Ending stuff:

So I thought it was pretty much understood that the real Simon had died, the Simon you played as for most of it was a digital copy whose memory stopped when he got scanned, then you were a copy of that copy. Then you got copied again which went to the Ark and the last copy stayed behind and would inevitably die or commit suicide.

I played the whole thing killing all the robots when I had a choice because to me they weren't human.

The last Simon on the bottom wasn't Simon, neither was the one on the Ark. Unless I'm missing something, the Ark was pretty much a virtual environment anyway - they weren't physically walking around anywhere, nor did they have the bodies they thought they had.

I'm not sure who the other character at the end was. Was it the Wau trying to get you to do its bidding? Or was the Wau hidden in Catherine? Getting you to launch the Wau's agenda into space?

Would anything in the game change if you did some things differently? Like I killed everyone and wiped all the data on all characters I could (including Simon), answered the questionnaires a certain way.

I think that guy is one or the leader of the Abyss crew. He has a name but I can't remember. I think he's kinda like you but has more WAU effects. I don't know. I don't think he could get back up from the Abyss and wanted you to take down that structural gel to hopefully wipe it out.

But as you said it could be Catherine losing her shit. But I don't think it is. I love how till almost the very end you think Catherine is going to be the stereotypical evil AI and screw you over. But I got the feeling she was like that because she didn't trust you too much.

I'm not sure about the different ending stuff. I want to know what that questionnaire thing was actually about. I think it was bookends of what the game was trying to say but it might have been more important than that.

Just remember today as well that there's pictures of something that looks very similar to the ARK near the start of the game. What was that all about? Is that what was making everyone kill themselves because they thought they would be at a better place?

The Abyss was really well done too i though. The weather and the blurry visual effects really made it feel you were deep at the bottom of the ocean with a lot of pressure on you body.

[DisturbedSwan]

Alien : Isolation was easily a 20+ hour game, unless you pussied out and played on easy or had a guide... but if Soma is anywhere near as good as that game was I guess I'm in for a treat.

I finished it on Hard, I thought I finished it in 15-16 hours but it was a while ago now so maybe it did take me 20 hours, can't remember.

EDIT: Checked an old forum thread and it took me 21 hours on Hard to finish A:I, still, my view stands that that is a fantastic game as well, sure slightly more padding maybe but I never thought it affected my enjoyment of the game.

[Hendo]

I'm doing a quick run through at the moment (well, not right now, I'm in work) and I've managed to get past the point of where you grab Catherine in about an hour which is pretty quick. I'm not reading all the tat as I pretty much read everything and explored on the first run.

I found a trophy guide as the trophy system is online only so I have no idea what I have or what I'm missing and if the guide is to be believed, all the trophies are story related so I should have them all. A bit of a damp squib if that's true. I would've thought there would be room for doing some for not killing anything or not getting attacked.

Regardless, I'm not killing anything I don't have to, just to see if anything changes. Though I doubt it.

[DisturbedSwan]

Yeah that is weird, I just assumed all the trophies/achievements were story related as I got all 10 on Steam without even trying.

[Duck]

Apparently there's one trophy that's missable and the rest are story related... which is weird as Duck says he's finish the game but only has half the trophies.

It's only YOU that's going to be finished mate...and SOMA.

Must of not updated or something.

[Hendo]

The one missable trophy, I'm quite happy to throw a minor spoiler out there to ensure no-one misses it - talk to everyone you can. Specifically, towards the end of the game, talk to someone and don't just kill them first.

[Hendo]

Read an interesting theory about one of the characters.

...that the Catherine that is helping you, is not Catherine Chun's scan. Her personality doesn't fit the profile I read on Catherine (meek, doesn't talk, easy target for domineering people to push around), and she already showed she can imitate other people's voices. Plus, her comment when you discover you're in Imogen's body, "Hey, don't say that, she was my ... she was nice to me." Now, maybe Catherine and Imogen were lovers, and that's it, but I think she almost slipped up and let on that I'm inhabiting her former body - Imogen.

I must admit I hadn't noticed or thought about any of that but now I read it, it does make sense.

[DisturbedSwan]

I still don't really rate the first few hours when you get to Pathos 2 including the atmosphere, but maybe I was just expecting too much, maybe I was expecting to be scared out my mind and I was just slightly unnerved and creeped out? I didn't find Alien that scary either in 2014, but Until Dawn was bloody scary at times.

I don't know what I do know is the atmosphere, tension and creepiness increases as you go through the game, but its still got nothing on Condemned, Until Dawn or Dead Space in terms of scariness, for me anyway, but then the further you go through the game you realise its not really a survival horror/horror game, more a mysterious exploration game with horror elements.

[radiofloyd]

Have any of you played Outlast? I'd be tempted to try it but it looks lucking scary to me.

[DisturbedSwan]

Yeah, finished it shortly after it was on PS+ a few years ago.

I would say that it is scarier than SOMA, but not significantly so, Outlasts scares only really happen the first 2 hours as well and the rest of the game is a massive game of hide and seek.

[Hendo]

Yeah, Outlast stopped being scary once you saw the enemies up close. Like, really up close.

I think this is scarier than Until Dawn. That's more traditional horror and most of it is cheap jump scares whereas the majority of the scares in Soma is dread, hiding from some unspeakable error of science and the longer lasting scary vision of the future and what mankind can become.

As I understand it, the daddy of the Nope genre is still the first Amnesia and if I can get a controller working or get over how dark it is, I'll go back to it. I really don't get the whole "nope" feeling out of games.

[DisturbedSwan]

Until Dawn freaked me out! The atmosphere in that was just horrifically scary and tense, for me anyway.

Scariest game I've played is probably The Suffering, Dead Space or Condemned 1 though, had Amnesia 1 and 2 sitting on my desktop since I got my PC in late 2014 but always been too apprehensive about starting them although the 2nd game is meant to not be too bad.

[radiofloyd]

I'm pretty near the end of Amensia 1 on my play file I think, 12 hours according to Steam. I played the game pretty slowly but it's not too bad after the first hour or two, once you settle into a pattern (the pattern being, plough ahead - and if something bad happens, it happens). However, i'm not sure if I would particularly recommend it, slightly over-rated I think.

I loved Dead Space but I wouldn't say it was particularly scary - you get pretty used to when and where enemies are going to appear, it's as much an action game as anything else.

The one game that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck was Scratches, I don't know if any of you have played it. Also, I have to admit that The Vanishing of Ethan Carter succeeding in creeping me out.

My weakness is still spiders. I can slowly play through a game like Amnesia but The Legend of Grimrock just destroys me.

[Duck]

Read an interesting theory about one of the characters.

...that the Catherine that is helping you, is not Catherine Chun's scan. Her personality doesn't fit the profile I read on Catherine (meek, doesn't talk, easy target for domineering people to push around), and she already showed she can imitate other people's voices. Plus, her comment when you discover you're in Imogen's body, "Hey, don't say that, she was my ... she was nice to me." Now, maybe Catherine and Imogen were lovers, and that's it, but I think she almost slipped up and let on that I'm inhabiting her former body - Imogen.

I must admit I hadn't noticed or thought about any of that but now I read it, it does make sense.

In the scene where she dies she's pretty shouty though. So I'm not sure. I thought it was heavily hinted that Catherine and Imogen were an item. Isn't there a scene (maybe when you copy yourself?) that's you found out it's Imogen's body or shell you have? I can't remember.

My weakness is still spiders. I can slowly play through a game like Amnesia but The Legend of Grimrock just destroys me.

Umm.. Radio, there's this... Um..one part in SOMA..eeeer..

Edit: spoiler tags were broken, I hope no one read it.

[DANGERMAN]

Amnesia suffers from that problem of the challenge undermining the horror. Once you die a couple of times or get stuck or run out of fucking candles it becomes gamey. Same with their earlier game Penumbra, really tense and unsettling until you get stuck. I actually found Amnesia A Machine for Pigs scarier that the first game simply because it's just the horror stuff, very little in the way of puzzles or combat (in the part I played anyway).

I thought PT was really effective, again, until I got stuck for 40 minutes. And as it was mentioned, I thought Until Dawn got pretty tense at points.