So, I've just recently finished SOMA, Frictional Games' latest entry in their horror billboard. All in all, it's a good/great game. Some moody atmosphere, some daring themes underlined throughout the adventure.
There's a bunch of issues, however, that I wasn't too keen on. Might as well say again that this thread is full of spoilers, so be aware of that.
First of all, the monsters. It really, really feels like a cop-out. They're there because Frictional Games felt like adding some kind of monsters, but they rarely add up to anything at all, and are more of a liability that pads out the game playtime rather than a fresh, dedicated necessity of this game's plot and atmosphere. Not only their AI is far more lousy than other FG's games, they rarely pose any kind of threat (like the monster who basically ignores you if you don't look at it) and don't really add much layer of horror/gameplay to it rather than having to take some small detours to avoid encountering one in specific points of this game.
And second...the whole monster WAU arc. Really, you just finish it all by touching a heart and that's pretty much it. I never kinda understood why Simon had the vaccine or power to destroy the WAU, why Ross was (despite being a monster) so obsessed of taking down it or what was WAU's really purpose other than its twisted preservation of humanity idea. It really felt like an afterthought; an excuse to have monsters in a game that would have beneffited from not having them (though it would have been a much shorter game).
To finish this all, and ignoring the monster's issue, the game's anticlimatic ending. Now, it's not anticlimatic because it basically marks the bitter failure of our protagonist: it's the fact that this ending was extremely predictable yet there's no surprise or anything when it really happens. Everything pointed out to it, yet Simon for some reason was surprised that things didn't happen like he wanted to, despite knowing prior to it that they wouldn't happen that way. I had hoped for some kind of plot twist at the very end, but nope. It just abruptly ends with something we, Catherine and pretty much everyone except Simon knew already. Even if you actively ignore the secondary information this game gives you throughout, you can pretty much work out how things are going to work considering you've already gone through two "mind imprints" already at that point. I dunno, it felt weak. Maybe it's because I expected something a bit more deeper, or the main character acknowledging it, but neither scenario happens.
So, what did you think about SOMA? Did you like it? Did you hate it?
