This is a great post.
Now do Soma vs. Age of Decadence.
Soma. Boom.
-Tom
I see your new calling as game playoff ref. Charge a monthly fee and members can refer to you to make choices about what games to buy or play from their backlog :-)
Why do I get the feeling that I’ve played this game before? It probably doesn’t help that I’m playing Doom at the same time.
So many satellite dishes to align. So many power grids to enable. Always another task to do after an apocalypse.
I think Soma does a much better job of all that stuff to be fair, mostly because you directly interact with things, pulling, pushing, sliding, turning, connecting and slotting things in. It makes the mundane more involving. I don’t think Frictional lean too much on the same kinds of ‘post-apocalyptic restoration’ here either, and if they do, there’s usually a twist (like the basement server mainframe reset at Theta). Another thing: the checkpointing is solid and restarting sections is infrequent. I absolutely get where you’re coming from though.
Compare all this with Alien: Isolation, or I Have No Power and I Must Scream (and in space, no one can hear you scream).
There were so many bits in Soma too where I was like “Oh sure, this is totally not going to go to plan” or “Something’s going to stop me reaching it” or “No way am I getting out of here that easily” and… I was wrong. I really appreciated those subversions, however minor.
Eh, 3 stars, liked it. The scares kept up well for the first few hours, then I hit a pretty bad stretch where I was constantly “checking my watch” hoping the game would end soon. (This is a personal problem with linear games for me lately.) But once I hit the endgame I was excited to see it through.
I finally installed this and tried it out.
It lost me in the first few seconds. You have to press a trigger and push and pull to open and close drawers? And pick up objects and turn them around to take a closer look? Anyway, it felt too awkward.
Is it better with a mouse and keyboard? If so, I might give it one more try. But what a horrible way to start a game. Interface nightmare. Is that why it’s considered horror?
I haven’t played it yet, but that sounds very much like the interactions in the first couple of Penumbra games that they made. If it’s similar, then it is easier with a mouse, and it’s pretty much an interactive design choice.
I understand the idea, but yes it is very awkward at first.
This is actually great :(
It makes every interaction with environment a bit more involved. It is a staple of their games actually. Being able to open stuff in an analogue way, not just OPEN/CLOSED. Try to get used to it, the game is absolutely fantastic, one of the best scifi stories I have experienced in games.
If you’re aggravated this early, there’s no way you’re going to make it very far. The game is designed to make you feel like you’re interacting with a tactile environment. In fact, I hate to tell you this, but that’s its main claim to gameplay.
That said, you might give it a try with a mouse before bailing. Soma – being a PC game – was designed to be played with a mouse and keyboard.
-Tom
Edit: Spoilery post below but if you haven’t played Soma yet then it’s at its lowest price on Steam right now. This is one of my favourite games in recent memory so I highly recommend it!
So I’ve been re-watching Red Dwarf recently and I’m on season 3. The last episode we watched was called Mindswap and it begins with Rimmer and Kryten going over some corrupted systems, referring to a ‘Theta’ and ‘Epsilon’. Now, this reminded me of Soma but these are just Greek characters so whatever. Anyway, later in that episode they have to syringe out Lister’s mind and store it on a tape (ha!) while uploading a senior officer’s consciousness into Lister’s body in order to get a security override. The senior officer reacts badly and they struggle to coax the info out of her but this whole segment reminded me of Soma. First with the dropping of those station/system names, secondly with the whole swapping/storing of consciousnesses, and thirdly having to get sensitive info out of someone from ‘cold’ waking (in Soma’s case it was a virtual simulation). I doubt there’s any link with the episode being 28 years old, but it was an amusing observation.
2 years later recap…
Oh, nice! I’ve liked Frictional since Penumbra but SOMA was something else. Glad it’s sustaining them and they’re busy with their next project(s).
Started this up last night on Xbox One, figured I would try out safe mode because who has time to hide from monsters? I’m liking the mood and environment and working out what’s going on. No performance issues, just an occasional hitch during what appears to be a transition load.
Safe mode is kind of funny though. I don’t think it really changes the creatures’ behavior, so if they spot you they’ll still try to impotently ram you, just doing no damage. I imagine them squealing “why won’t you DIIEEEE” in their dial-up modem language. So you still kind of need to steer clear of them, if only to get past them to what were trying to do. Basically they’ve been downgraded to annoying little brother status.
So they still warp your vision and make your character tense up? That doesn’t sound very safe. I guess when there’s no risk you lose all the fear.
Yes, vision still does that blur thing, not sure about tensing up. I did notice his breath quicken too. I think all that changed is that their attacks do no damage, as best I can tell.
For me, the tension and dread came from the story itself and the monsters were just an irritating obstacle.
Now they’re just irritating.
I thought they’d be removed entirely. Seems kind of half-baked, but I try not to pick at developers.
It does seem like kind of a worst case - the monsters are still there, can’t hurt you, but still try. I think I would have preferred just aimless wandering over this, but I’ll see how the rest of the game goes. Fortunately, in my case at least, the monsters are not the main draw of the game and I’m sure I’ll enjoy either way.