Soma

Soma is the third game by Frictional Games I've tried.  The others being Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.  It has a lot in common with it's predecessors.

The gameplay of Soma isn't overly impressive.  Amnesia: The Dark Descent was a great horror game that was fairly innovative when it came out.  This game doesn't add anything to the mix however and is actually less interesting mechanically.  Really, the story of Soma could probably be planted into any kind of game.  I'm not sure there's any real reason for this to be a horror game other than because it's what Frictional Games seems to specialize in.

At one point I remember sitting in a dark room with nowhere to hide and a monster across from me.  After several seconds the monster decided to come get me but my only consequence was respawning in the exact same place and having the monster removed.

I can't say I really found the game to be very scary.  In The Dark Descent, much like the movie Jaws, a lot of the fear comes from not actually seeing the monsters.  The player would lose sanity when they looked at them, the camera would become distorted, and if they looked long enough the player would lose.  There was also a very memorable scene with an invisible water monster.  In Soma there's no penalty for seeing monsters and once you've seen them having them lumber up to you isn't really as freaky.  I also felt like I spent more time hiding in closets and behind doors in The Dark Descent while Soma was more about waiting for a monster to walk a repeated pattern and leave you an opening.

On the plus side what Soma does very well is tell a story.  It's a great plot that I spent basically all my free time on until I finished it.  I'll avoid mentioning any spoilers though but it's science fiction that brings up thoughts of artificial intelligence and what it really means to be alive.

I also think the visuals were generally pretty nice and especially the camera effects.  The camera would play with bloom, technical and biological distortions, and all sorts of neat things.  Walking through the abyss was particularly well done.

Overall I enjoyed Soma even though I didn't love the game mechanics.  The world it takes place in is very engaging and it does a good job of building a theme.  I recommend the game if you're into science fiction.

7/10