SOMA Reviews
SOMA creates a tangible underwater facility with overpowering tension and a haunting atmosphere. It paces the horror carefully and will captivate minds with its narrative.
A competent and creepy survival horror, elevated by a well-crafted story that really gets under your skin.
The game, like the best works of science fiction, understands that horror can come from discomfort inherent to the erasure of boundaries we assume exist. The unintelligible whispers of static and the shattered visuals of glitch provide only the most cursory glances at a machine world inaccessible to us.
If loads of jump scares or action are your thing, SOMA might disappoint. It takes its time, is even a little self indulgent, but more than anything it wants you to actually think about what's going on. If you are going to come for this one come for the excellent writing, voice acting and atmosphere.
As an immersive and anxious experience that also manages to be just as beautiful as it is terrifying, SOMA is in a class all its own. The stunningly well-realized world melds brilliantly with the outstanding score and sound design, begging the player to buy into the atmospheric world that Frictional Games has so painstakingly crafted. It genuinely feels like this is the natural evolution of everything that was started in Amnesia, just done with a bit more careful attention to detail and polish. This is an experience that completely justifies its budget price tag and more than validates the game's five-year development cycle.
SOMA will scare you, no doubt, but it won't be the memory of a gnarled, disfigured mass clumsily ambling towards you in a corridor that leaves you awake and unable to sleep at night. It will be the question of what makes us human.
'SOMA' is scary, but that aspect pales in comparison with the great script and characterization. It is a bit brief at 10-12 hours, but does not over stay its welcome and should not be missed for anyone who appreciates a deep sci-fi tale with a healthy dose of accompanying fear.
In 2015, and with no mind digitization in sight, the questions Soma raises are difficult to answer without dreadful introspection.
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.
SOMA tells an interesting albeit convoluted story but is a chore to play through.
A superb story with mismatched horror elements
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.
Unsettling, confronting, and thought-provoking.
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...
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 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.
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.
It falls short of greatness, but the story is enough to keep anyone riveted.
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.
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.