SOMA

A great Sci-fi story that focuses on what it means to be human. The interactivity with the world was a lot of fun and never got boring. Honestly, my only major gripe was the hide and seek/chase sequences with the enemies. Always felt more annoying than scary, especially as I was trying to explore this interesting world. Mileage on that will vary.

One of the best games I have played in my life. Incredible storyline.

Brilliant game, scary as heck and thought provoking. I only have two things I didn't really like, one you (player) is a bit of a dick and two the monsters are more annoying that scary. I think the game would have been just as good or even better without the monsters and I think it would have opened up the game to a wider audience. Anyway, brilliant game.

The less you know about the game the more enjoyable your experience will be. All you need to know is that the game is scary, story is very good, puzzles are not very challenging and game is approximately 12 hours long. The game play is very similar to Penumbra/Amnesia series.

Let me first say that I didn't like Amnesia and to be honest, I somewhat despise the game design of running and hiding from indestructible enemies. I personally think there are better ways of creating suspense and permanently getting trapped by monsters you can't affect is simply frustrating and bad design. Anyway, the good news is that I still liked Soma despite using this type of game mechanics - but mainly because they are just used here and there and get annoying only in a very few scenes. Most of the time, Soma is about exploration and telling a story with some puzzle solving here and there - and that is where it really shines. It's not like there are lots of puzzles or the story is totally novel - actually some authors like Philip K. Dick have dedicated their whole work to the question what defines a human. But for a game, the writing is certainly way above the standard and also the voice acting is pretty good. It's a bit of a shame though that the graphics are only OK. Like they serve their purpose and aren't ugly but it's not like there is any eye candy either. Also neither the underwater bases nor the trips across the bottom of the ocean show any inspired world design. Actually, I found the walking around on the ocean bed a lot less entertaining than I expected. Besides, the game design is strictly linear and the game is on the short side - like around 8h or so. Most of the puzzles are very straight forward. I only got stuck twice for some time because I overlooked a little switch in one case and was supposed t do things in a certain order in another case. Still, the solid overall design and good story make Soma worth playing and something you might remember even in a few years.