SOMA Reviews
While SOMA may be lacking in the fear department, it more than makes up for it in existentialist unease.
When Soma is able to stretch its legs and be the horror game fans have been waiting for these past five years, it delivers in giant terror-inducing waves. Sadly, some inconsistent pacing and clunky mechanics weigh it down, leaving us with a good game rather than a great one.
SOMA isn't perfect, but it sets a certain standard for what horror games can achieve with a bit of inspiration. Though it isn't heavy on the scares, the bits of horror spread throughout work well, and the story will leave a lasting, hard-hitting impression.
SOMA is an horror adventure, but most of all is a drama. Some characters and dialogues can be strikingly perturbing. Even with his classic gameplay and multiple references the result gets remains fresh.
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Soma isn't much of a horror game, but that's not a big loss. It uses horror trappings as a jumping off point to find more intelligent and interesting trails to follow. Its follow-through, save for a few instances where I felt it succumb to the bindings of its genre, is impressive. When it talks about something, it goes for it, and the results are rarely pretty or happy but almost always intriguing.
One of the best games I've played this year and my favorite from Frictional to date.
SOMA is at its best when it's challenging you on a philosophical level rather than on a mechanical one. As a horror game, SOMA feels old and archaic.
In the 10 or so hours it took me to finish SOMA I was hooked for the entire experience, from shocking beginning to one of the best game endings I've seen since Portal. SOMA will destroy you emotionally, and that's a very good thing indeed.
It falls short of greatness, but the story is enough to keep anyone riveted.
It may not strike the same level of outright terror that Amnesia: The Dark Descent but even in this genre, SOMA is a standout title with an interesting storyline centered around the age old debate of being human.
SOMA is one of those once-in-a-generation experiences that so wildly defies both expectation and assumptions that I can say with confidence that it will forever impact how we define video games.
In the end, SOMA does not quite share the scare factor of Amnesia, but it does exceed it from a storytelling standpoint, as well as nailing that same attention to detail that creates a tense atmosphere filled with both beauty and horror. A definite purchase for the Halloween season.
SOMA is not the horror game I expected from Frictional, but it's an excellent piece of science fiction that feels of a piece with stories by Harlan Ellison and Philip K. Dick as much as Frictional's...
Unsettling, confronting, and thought-provoking.
If this isn't survival horror, nothing is. The story is deep as the ocean in which it is set, and it is well acted throughout. Terrifying but never unfair, controls more than fit for purpose.
A superb story with mismatched horror elements
SOMA tells an interesting albeit convoluted story but is a chore to play through.
They're good at telling stories, these Frictional guys. They're good at building tension, and at using audio cues to stimulate fear. But in the end, I was put off by the inconvenient monsters. When fear is replaced by impatience, something is lost. This is something that Alien Isolation had very occasionally, and that completely ruined the 1999 PC game Aliens vs. Predator. When the monsters become a nuisance, and you're more worried about them for holding up your progress into the main plot than really terrifying you, it's hard to stay really scared.
In 2015, and with no mind digitization in sight, the questions Soma raises are difficult to answer without dreadful introspection.