SOMA Reviews
Ultimately, SOMA provides a unique tale of sci-fi horror that is unlike any of its contemporaries. While it's fun to get the heart racing while being chased down by a huge robot set on dismantling you, it's the narrative parts of SOMA that left me thinking about it long after completion.
Despite the issues outlined above, most horror fans will have a good time with SOMA. Frictional Games have shown us time and time again that they are masters of telling a scary story; this time, without the crutch of plentiful jump scares. SOMA is a game that can cause you to question your humanity, if only for a few moments. It's just a shame that the HPL Engine 3 was not up-to-snuff for the PlayStation 4.
All in all, SOMA is a fantastic game. From the detailed world in which it takes place, the engaging plot, and the perfect amount of creeping terror and suspense, there's a lot to love if you're into horror.
Frictional Games has attempted to merge sci-fi horror with a philosophical investigation into the mind-body problem.
Soma is an exceptionally-compelling story, told in ways that are both innovative and very traditional in turn. It takes you from the highs of puzzling where you're interrogating the back-up of a long-dead technician repeatedly until you manage verisimilitude to the lows (in terms of innovation, not in horror) of yet again skulking behind a table waiting for another insta-kill monster to wander by.
One of the best games I've played this year and my favorite from Frictional to date.
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.
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.
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.