So... uhh what do the choices entail?

[hollowleviathan]

Several of the choices have an immediate effect on the game, even if they don't create 'branching' endings.

Spoiler below!

You have the choice, technically, to set the sunken boat to explode before you plug Catherine into the escape boat. This dramatically changes your dialog and understanding of the situation.

Also, choosing to not poison the WAU heart causes Ross to become upset at you and pull you back into the room to attempt to possess your body. I didn't retry the game differently but I assume this plays out differently if you decide to kill it.

Deciding

Spoiler below!

if the WAU lives or dies,

I think, is one of the biggest choices in the game, even if the ending cinematic doesn't address it.

[Mastersarge]

The thing is the decisions does not affect gameplay at all. That was wrongest decision in terms of gameplay. I was actually looking forward to replay the game with different decisions to see how the story would go.

It was made like that to avoid choosing "A" over "B" just to get different ending or different way to finish the game and it's good that it was made that way. I remember in Metro games how it was ruining experience, people were trying to be "good" not because they wanted to, but because it was necessary to get more challenging good ending.

Also, most choices in Soma are made in a way that often there's really no good choices. You need to spend some time for reflection and choose what is the lesser evil in your eyes. Not because of different ending. Soma isn't just about gameplay, but about experience.

@secret1962
Yeah, I'm also angry at bad opinions and reviews, but you know, Soma is not a game for everyone unfortunately. Some people are saying that having no guns is bad because they want to just kill everything around. How tasteless. Some people are saying that having no jumpscares is bad. Some people are saying that Soma is bad because only gameplay is important and plot is just addition in their eyes.
Soma isn't just a game. FG focused more about creating interactive story and you have to put yourself in Simon's place to fully understand this game. Some people don't understand this and say that Soma is crappy "walking simulator". Tense moments and difficult moral choices. It's not the usual game. Not everyone will like this and FG is probably aware of this.
Most first person or third person games focus their gameplay on fighting. Personally I'm being fed up of this and in my eyes it's amazing how FG is able to show people that it's not necessary element. It's not easy to make a game like that(and probably easiest way to achieve it is to scary the player as much as possible). However Soma showed us that games like that can achieve something even bigger, superb and touching story.


Holy cow, what a wall of text.

Honestly, that line of thinking is as flawed as the people who made the future Silent Hill and Resident Evil games. No one ever said it was a necessary element. At all. Nor can it be as scary to the player without the right tone. Outlast, despite its flaws, constitutes a horror game in some way. But just because you took away their ability to fight back doesn't mean it was going to be that much of an in depth horror game. Walking Simulators do nothing absolutely nothing to make a game as enticing as the producers make it out to be.

Look at Silent Hill 1. It had the best story telling in a horror game that overshadowed the Resident Evil game back then. Best acting, best atmosphere, and you get a weapon throughout the game. But did the weapon really matter? No. Because of how alien the monsters are, as well as how alien the environment is, topped with this oppressive atmosphere that the game was able to create. Real tasteless people claim Dear Esther or A Machine For Pigs to be the highlight of gaming when really they did nothing but make you move at a tedious snail pace while trying to be as poetic and cryptic as possible as a means to shovel horseshit they want us to believe down our throats. Gameplay matters just as much as the story does and the gameplay only matters if it fits the tune of the story it is telling (or a lack therof) that it is able to put off.

Saying that people 'don't understand' isn't going to do much. You aren't really explaining the reasons why nor are you actually letting them state their own arguments as to why they think like this.

[nop123]

aaaaa

[schmaker]

For example, Simon 3 could meet Simon 2 in later game if you didnt disconnected him, deciding to (for example) distract the non-moving enemy in front of the powerpack and dying there. That would make big moment in game.

Using stun-gun on robot could make robots hunting you and trying (succesfully?) to stop you launching Ark.

Thats just examples of how choices could apply to the game. Actually - game could give you a LOT different experience in terms of story and gameplay, no need to change ending at all.

I feel some missed opporturnities in this game - interactive movie. I'm not saying it's bad, but i can't say it used the potential to the fullest. The game was definitely better than Amnesia (even though second-half monsters were literally annoying and the game started losing breath after heading to ending) and had a lot better level design than Penumbra. But choices seriously have to matter to hook you into game a much more.

[nop123]

aaaaa

[schmaker]

I know FG isnt going rewrite whole game just because schmaker said it would be better. I'm just saying the game would be much bigger bang for the buck with not that much bigger effort and would be 90% class game instead of 75% one. Also, replayability would be so much better than it is now. Thats a thing to consider if you gonna make game (that SOMA definitely is) instead of interactive movie.

The game is good, storyline is great. Both could have been great though - thats a thing to consider for next game.

[nop123]

aaaaa

[cantremember]

There is a choice where you can choose to "torture" the sentient robot, and get easy access to the comm center, or pull a different lever which makes the bad robot move up the stairs.
But someone said something about a tiny robot that helped you? Or I missed that?

[Darth Biomech]

I can understand that devs wanted avoid the "Must chose good ending despite my own opinion" thing, but I think it is possible to both have meaningful choices that change gameplay and story, and avoidance of selecting some choices because they give you the good ending. You just need to make results of these choices to be: A) not feeling or perceived good or bad for the story B) it's consequences shouldn't be better or worse in comparison to the other choice, and out of these two emerges C) make it so there is different endings, but none of them is good or bad, none is "true".
most of the players will ANYWAY base their choices during the first gameplay based on their opinion, because they won't know how these choices will affect the plot or them (especially if the choices do not look obvious... Like that when you decide what to do with Simon-2). they might go again second time with maybe walkthrough in the hand, but on a second run the game will not be the same in any case.

[Fortigurn]

I wanted to save people, and I haven't been able to save anyone yet. At least I've avoided killing some people.