Posted on: March 20, 2019
craig_s_russell
Verified ownerGames: 506 Reviews: 42
SOMA - Spiritual sibling to Blade Runner
(DISCLAIMER: If you're not familiar with the 1982 Ridley Scott movie "Blade Runner", look it up on Wikipedia :-D) When I finished SOMA in 2019 I felt exactly like I did when I finished the movie "Blade Runner" in a theater in 1982. In 1982, I had just enjoyed a distinctive movie experience where a unique story was shared and, as the story was told, a hard question was implicitly asked: "What IS a human being?" or more precisely "What makes us human?" But Ridley Scott didn't end the movie by "preaching" an answer. Rather he left it to the viewers to develop their own answers. In the same way Frictional Games delivered a AAA gaming experience that I will always remember. In my opinion, Frictional refined the question to be "Is it possible to capture and transfer the human soul?" or, to ask it another way, "Can science truly quantify what makes us human?" SOMA tells the same story every time, but how it emotionally impacts the player will be greatly determined by the individual player's personal values and beliefs. For example, my son and I have similar but slightly different beliefs. After we both finished the game separately we were chatting about it. Events during the game that were deeply troubling to me didn't impact my son in the same way, and vice-versa. We also differed on how "satisfying" the ending was. (BTW I'm purposely NOT giving specifics to avoid unintentional spoilers to readers of this review). Regarding technical execution, SOMA has DOOM3-era graphics (very, very good, but not great), exceptionally good audio effects and above average good voice acting. My PC contains Intel i5-8400 (6 cores @ 4Ghz), NVIDIA 1050 Ti 4GB, 8GB RAM, Windows 10 Home 64-bit. I ran SOMA at 1900x1200 with Max settings at a steady 60 FPS with Vsync on, and 100+ FPS with Vsync off. Measured using MSI Afterburner. To wrap up, SOMA is a must-play for anyone who loves narrative games. Buy it today at FULL PRICE. It's worth it!!!
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