SOMA Discussion Thread

Nitrogen

So, if you haven't picked up SOMA yet, I'd encourage you to buy it and give it a try. It really is kind of a masterpiece.

It was one of those games that I started with indifference and it slowly sucked me in deeper and deeper.

Set in the 2100's, in an underwater geothermal powerplant. But really that's just the tip of the iceberg. The voice acting is top notch and really goes a long way to make the characters relateable even though they really avoided showing many human 3D models (I guess it wasnt their strong suite).

The environments are awesome and the sound design is some of the BEST sound effects I've ever heard in a game. Apparently they used binaural recordings and it's beautiful. I should really go back and play it again with headphones.

Sash

Oh yes, Sound Design ftw!!! if anyone is interested in the behind the scenes on the sound front... here you go :)

http://frictionalgames.blogspot.co.za/2015/09/soma-behind-sound.html

Nitrogen

Frikken awesome, I love reading stuff like this.

Chris_Bischoff

The best part of SOMA is how Frictional have kept their team size to an absolute minimum. They are currently at 14 people - which is amazing when you consider that they have produced a AAA product.
I would put SOMA up next to Dead Space, Bioshock - pretty much any big horror FPS. Just an amazing company and really nice group of people!

Nitrogen

Totally agree. Though it did take them 5 long years (sounds familiar doesnt it!). Compare that to Assassins Creed Black Flag which as far as I can see on Wikipedia was completed in 1 year?!

Chris_Bischoff

In those 5 years they did do an intermediary release with Machine For Pigs, which was managed and designed by the team - but actually created by The Chinese Room.

It was a clever move, because it gave them a good cash flow in the middle of production. They have very cleverly placed themselves in a position to keep a small team, and have semi-extended development cycles. I would assume they will use a similar model for their next new big game - ie, split the team onto a big game, and have a portion work on a smaller game that can be released in 2 years.

Tim_Harbour

I just finished Soma last night... as a fan of horror games I must say this might be my favourite one ever. I thought Outlast was great however much more in the vein of gore and slasher than true horror in my opinion. It was scary but in a "I need to really get away from these crazy people" kinda way. Amnesia has to be one of the scariest games I've ever played. I got so very far in the game then lost all my saves and had to start again, I got much less further than before and decided to retire it until a later date cos I was tired of shitting my pants.

Soma is the perfect inbetween, they give you little glimmmers of hope, interaction with other characters etc. But the game was still fucking scary, just not so scary I was hyper ventilating ... I found Soma to be less scary than Amnesia but I actually think that is a good thing...made the game more enjoyable even while being scary. The story is fucking amazing, the concepts that it addresses are awesome. If we could photocopy our brain, what defines us as human? 10/10 would recommend.

Nitrogen

@Tim_Harbour yeah my experience exactly. A more forgiving, less scary Amnesia with a KICKASS setting and story (if that does it any justice). I actually got a bit annoyed around the middle of SOMA when it turns into a bit of a full blown Amnesia game, but happy to see that it never sinks too deeply into the whole "hide in a dark corner from the monsters" vibe and keeps it fresh.

Tim_Harbour

Yeah I really like the evolution of the style. As much as I like horror games I did find Amnesia a struggle just because of the sheer amount you need to hide and light/madness management became a pain. Like sometimes a monster would appear 2 or 3 times on a route to your destination and you have to move into a corner and wait for ages and then do that two more times just to move around while trying not to go crazy. Especially towards the middle of the game it became tiring. They kept the puzzle solving and exploration fresh in Soma and didn't feel like you needed to backtrack a lot, where I found myself back tracking and getting lost in Amnesia all the time.

I'm excited to see what these guys come up with next! :D

Mexicanopiumdog

My five cents from the audio perspective of SOMA:

I finished SOMA a couple of days ago and having spent ~7hours to complete the game, I felt very drawn in by the atmosphere that was so meticulously set by both visuals and audio - a perfect synergy!

The sound was so damn good, I started playing it with headphones on and felt so immersed and drained by the heavy storyline and ambience that I switched to speakers! :P

I really appreciated the binaural effect of some of the dialogue and effects in the game and really believe that this is definitely the direction ALL story-based exploration games should go...it doesn't only create a more realistic 3D-scopic world which matches the picture better than having only stereo/monophonic soundscapes but it adds SO much immersion and damn...the feeling of hearing the rush of bubbles roll past your helmet while jumping through 0-gravity oceanworld is just EARGASMIC.

SOMA has to be one of the most ingenious games I have played and was well worth the $25 that I paid.
Alien Isolation can suck it,

Nitrogen

Do yourself a favour and listen to some of these recordings with headphones:
http://www.quietamerican.org/field_vietnam.html

It makes you feel like you're really there travelling Vietnam. I feel that having a photo album from a trip overseas is nothing compared to having binaural recordings like this.