Official Poll Regarding SOMA's Monsters

[Peeling]

I really enjoyed the game, and I thought it was a lot more interesting than A:TDD - although not as scary, I think because for much of the game you get to keep touching base with a pretty up-beat companion who seems at home in that environment.

I thought the monsters were well-conceived, especially the one people are calling the disco-ball head. I thought that had a genuinely nightmarish quality. I personally find it much scarier when creatures don't telegraph the threat they pose - you know: no big teeth or claws, no snarling face.

I did have one big problem with all the monsters, though: their movement and animation.

This isn't Assassin's Creed. You don't have hundreds of people wandering around, and a zillion idle anims to worry about. You have one, maybe two creatures per level to devote 100% of your attention and CPU to animating and controlling its behaviour.

Those creatures certainly get 100% of the players' attention, and I don't think the game does it justice. In particular, there's a lot riding on the first monster the player encounters (after all the initial build up), and the way it moves and patrols was, for me, a huge let-down.

It marched around in an entirely robotic fashion, exhibiting no sign of inquisitiveness or awareness of its surroundings. If you're trying to convince someone that something mechanical is alive (and let's face it, that's kind of the whole point with SOMA) the golden rule is that it should behave more lifelike than it moves, and move more lifelike than it looks. Best example of this is WALL-E. Remember that bit at the end where he looks like his mind has been wiped? All that changed was the way he moved.