Official Poll Regarding SOMA's Monsters

[plutomaniac]

These are my negative monster observations:

1. Almost always, after being hit once (not twice = death), you get respawned very-very close the area the monster patrols. One or two times I ended up respawing 5 meters away from it. So obviously I would get detected again and now killed. That was annoying, mainly because it happened a lot of times.

2. It was very obvious that some monsters (maybe not the first one) practically followed you around. The maps are a lot bigger compared to Amnesia so I thought that if I successfully sneaked past one I would be clear for the rest of the map. What I noticed though is that once I moved to a different part of the map (still same level) the monster would start patrolling the new area. Nothing I did gave my position away, why would it start patrolling the place I was at suddenly? I noticed that mainly at the CURIE and Tau monsters.

3. Yoshida, the Tau monster. I hated that thing. I haven't looked at the script but I'm certain it was cheating. Whenever you got some meters away from it, it would just appear close to you even though there was absolutely no sound, visible clues from my part. The first section of Tau took me at least 45 minutes to walk through because of Yoshida even though it's really a 5 minute exploration. I got away from it quietly and went to check the computers further in which was impossible because it was constantly outside the door randomly opening it and walking in for no apparent reason. It's funny, if I went back to the first section of the level (decompression room), it would soon be paroling that small area as well. In the end, I got tired of it and ditched exploration in order to run for the stairs and thus away from it. I didn't get a chance to call the Infirmary, I'm still wondering if she would have replied before "officially" meeting her later on.

4. Good vs Evil creatures. There was a lot of talk before the game was released regarding determining whether a creature is friendly or not. I found that idea very interesting but I don't think the game manages that. Due to the sounds, movement, actions etc it was very clear which monsters were out to get you compared to help you. So there wasn't really any question between can I trust this creature or not.

Don't get me wrong. As I said, these are negative monster aspects only. I really liked SOMA otherwise. Especially the themes, story, environment, voice acting etc.

And yes, FG did manage to make the monster mechanics not apparent like they were in Amnesia. I still don't understand how that woman monster works. I tried sound, movement etc but nothing worked. I think I just have to get close to it and then it starts chasing. So I ended up quickly picking up the battery and just running away. Also the CURIE monster, I know it was blind but it was certainly appearing close to me very often. It's either cheating (probably) or just has some other player-detection factor which I am not aware of.

So yes, using multiple monsters for a short period of time does work since the player does not understand the mechanics BUT if they are cheating everyone can tell.