The Ultimate SOMA Discussion Thread

[Chrysler]

Are these find-a-fuse and repair-the-generator puzzles supposed to be a running gag? If I'm not mistaken we had them in Penumbra tech demo (generator), Penumbra Overture (generator), Amnesia (rods or fuses), AMFP (fuse) and now in SOMA.

[Nyarlathotep]

http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/o1jjpe/soma-preview

Not sure if it's been posted here, didn't catch it while skimming. But Gametrailers has a great video preview up.

Crazy excited for this now.

Really liking the environment design and weird distortion effects. The creature shown is really creepy, too. Also kind of spoilerish maybe? For anyone who wants to see as little as possible. I'm just glad to finally see a small bit of gameplay.

It's interesting that there's no inventory, again. It looks like objects that would usually be in your inventory get held by the character instead making you drag them around physics-style? That's what I got out of the video at least, not totally sure.

[Alardem]

Hm...comments inside the spoiler tag:

Spoiler below!

-Seems like the protagonist is a man named Simon. There also seems to be a woman he keeps in contact with ala Amabel from Black Plague - could this be Imogen Reed from the trailers?

-In lieu of audio tapes or 'memories', you now find out bits of story either from picking up letters which float in front of you or clicking on dead crew members and hearing their last moments. Sort of reminiscent of the ghosts from the Shock series.

-You apparently use monitors by clicking on them - a little like Doom 3.

-There is a humanoid antagonist that sort of resembles the Grunt with a disco ball for a head - this guy distorts your vision and apparently teleports.

-There's a glimpse of a map of the Earth, which seems to point at the facility being located somewhere in the Atlantic ocean.

-It's not clear if you have to keep holding onto objects after clicking on them, but it doesn't seem like you have any inventory or HUD.

-We're apparently not too deep enough to not have cute little crabs living among Cthulhu.

[Oswald Mandus]

there's more.
http://www.joystiq.com/2014/04/04/video-preview-soma/
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/soma-th...0-6418755/
http://www.polygon.com/2014/4/4/5537556/...sturbances
http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/soma-han...fi-horror/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/04/...esia-game/
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-0...-game-soma

[Sampyli]

There's also another station called 'Omicron'.

[Nyarlathotep]

From the comments in that Rock Paper Shotgun article, it sounds like they're feeling a bit of pressure to please the Let's Players that grew around Amnesia.

While I have nothing against those videos themselves. It kind of bums me out to see that they might be impacting the development of these games. This was a big thing in A Machine for Pigs as well - while not all complaints were based around that, of course, a huge portion pretty much boiled down to it not being a fun game to watch let's plays of. It is kind of ridiculous when you read the Steam Forums and see most people saying "not even horror" when a game goes for something subtler and less let's play friendly.

I'm glad Frictional is aiming for a deeper experience. But it'd be kind of sad if they have to make it more Amnesia-like just to ensure its success and not necessarily the better of the storytelling. Not that I'm faulting them on that, just the audience for these games now. What happened to the people who managed to appreciate Silent Hill 2 despite it being a much less in your face experience than anything else in its series?

Anyway. Those reactions aside. It's apparent that this won't be a game that's easy to judge until played in full. So I'm not too worried about the few uncertainties surrounding the demo.

[BAndrew]

There's also another station called 'Omicron'.

Is there also a sector of the station named "Kappa"?
Because then I see a connection.
If we anagram the letters of the sectors in the station we get :

Κ-Θ-Ο-Υ-Λ-Ο-Υ = Cthulhu (Lovecraftian creature)
Kappa - Theta - Omicron - Ypsilon - Lambda - Omicron -Ypsilon

Most likely I am way off, just a thought.

I didn't see "Kappa" or any other station in any video, so I guess I am wrong.

[Googolplex]

The protagonist's name is Simon?

Somehow I doesn't find the monsters scary in this video.

[SeanieTheMan]

Yeah, the monsters basically just look like grunts with a blue head and teleportation abilities. Hopefully there are several different varieties of enemies in this game.

[BAndrew]

From the videos I saw the environment looks very detailed. The atmosphere fits perfectly with the theme of the game, both alien and mysterious.

The monsters seem really strange. That's cool because you never know what to expect.