Soma Review
Soma is a sci-fi horror game by Critereon games, the creators of Amnesia. It uses the same engine as Amnesia so it feels similar to play, although the game mechanics have been stripped back: there is no inventory system or collecting oil, no sanity meter. I usually dislike when games dumb things down but I think it actually makes the game more immersive in this case. I think I am about 3/4th of the way through the game at this point, so this review will only cover what I have experienced so far. (I am currently at the point of the game where you try to recover the dingbat vessel but things fall down).
The game opens with some brief establishing events: you play as a man named Simon who has been in a car crash and now needs to go for a brain scan. The brain scan is a research project, but things feel a bit off. Upon completing the scan, you awaken not in the scan room, but in a dark room of what appears like a spaceship. There is nobody else around, and just a general creepy atmosphere, the place is dark and abandoned, but you can hear noises like something might be moving around.
The monsters of the world are creepy bio-robots, with quite a variety of different types. The game builds suspense by making the first monster encounter only happen 30 minutes in - but keeps you on edge with excellent atmospheric events and sounds that make you feel like you will encounter something scary at any moment. When a monster is nearby your visuals start distorting and the soundscape kicks up with heartbeats and static noise, the way your perspective of the world reacts to the environment is excellent, and completely immersive.
The whole brain scan aspect becomes a core part of the plot. Near the start of the game, after escaping from one of the monsters you then encounter a friendly robot who starts talking to you. But then things become very strange - the robot thinks he is a human, and no amount of you telling him that he is clearly a robot can convince him otherwise. Someone has put a human brain into a robot. You start to wonder "how am I the only real human amongst a bunch of robots who all think that they're human?". Until the realisation hits you...
In general I think the game is excellent, the atmosphere created by the graphics, environments and sound design all come together to create a completely immersive and terrifying experience. Compared to Amnesia the gameplay is a lot more linear, the puzzles are simpler and since there's no real inventory system the whole aspect of collecting and using items is gone. As far as I can remember Amnesia only had one type of monster, the grunt things, whereas Soma has lots of different monster types as well as multiple monsters in the same areas, which I think makes Soma far scarier because everything feels more unknown. Also Amnesia relied quite heavily on gore and shock horror which I wasn't so much of a fan of, that kind of thing makes me feel disgust rather than fear. Soma is pure fear-based horror all the way through which I think makes it far more terrifying to play.
I think the idea to have Catherine, your assistant, be a brain chip that you can only plug in and speak to at certain points is a genius design decision. Having a human or robot assistant that was physically in the world with you would completely kill the fear of the game because there would always be another person there with you. Having Catherine on a chip means that a) she can only be present at certain points, and so there's still sections of the game where you are completely alone and b) she has no way of physically protecting you, and can't even properly warn you of danger because she's stuck in a terminal and can't see you.
Overall I am really enjoying this game. I read a few other reviews before writing this, and people are saying that Soma was inspired by a game called System Shock 2, which also inspired Bioshock. Someone put it as Soma being System Shock 2 if it leaned completely into the story aspect, while Bioshock would be the same but completely leaning into the FPS aspect. I haven't played either of those games, but now I'm interested so I've put them on my steam wishlist and will hopefully pick both of them up in a sale at some point.