SOMA

If you are looking for a thought provoking game that will question your existence - YOU FOUND IT! The atmosphere so good and terrifying that this is a true definition of a horror. This is actually one of a great examples of environment horror where the surroundings and the leftovers become as scary as the monsters!

Really great sci-fi/horror FPS, that makes you think about what it means to be human. Great athmosphere, both from the superb audio, but also light/shadows and graphics overall. A lot of dialogue, so it's not a game you feel totally alone while playing. Voice acting and story is great! The game has good physics too, and you can move/throw around most objects in the world you explore, as well as open drawers and so on where you sometimes find stuff of interest. It sure has some horror elements to it, even if you can't compare it to a game like Alien Isolation, but at some places you probably will be afraid and running/hiding. Puzzles mostly feel very natural, it feels like everything you do has a purpose, and you rarely get bored by the next task at hand. For the last hour though I got a bit frustrated trying to navigate a new building while constantly being chased, so I surrendered and entered GodModeActivated="true" into the settings file, just to get the ending without any frustration, but probably wouldn't have been very hard anyway except for that short bit I got annoyed by. Game probably took me 20h or so, but I like to take my time, specially in athmospheric storyheavy game like this! Got steady 60fps with all max @1440p on my 1650S, so it's not very demanding at all.

I got this game during a GOG giveaway and was rather skeptical about it. On top of that I am more into classical shooters rather than horror games. Anyway, this game is worth every second spent in it for its story, twists, puzzle solving and last but least I found it very stimulating to the imagination. Recommend it if you are in that mood!

When I finished SOMA it reminded me of how much I liked the story of the Talos Principle despite how mind-blowingly hard the puzzles were in it. My brain was literally hurting but I just couldn't stop playing it, because it was so immersive. I felt the same with SOMA, but instead of being extremely hard, it is extremely nerve-racking. The horror is constant, you always fear what you'll see beyond the next corner. There were parts where I was literally suffering, it was that horrible (not horrible as in BAD, but horrible as in HORROR). I've played dozens of horror games, and none of them can hold a candle to SOMA. I'd like to give this a 5/5 but I can't because the immersive gameplay and the superb story are overshadowed by the permanent nerve damage you'll surely suffer while playing through it.

I was expecting a horror game but this reminded me most of Halflife. Without the shooting (mostly defenseless) you get to take your time to explore and find your way out of a seemingly abandoned research center, find out if what you think who you are is correct and discover what went on. I enjoyed that as to me it’s executed in very clever way. Even the most nonsensical (seemingly typical horror elements) most of the time end up making sense. Combined with moving from one section of the center to the next, it gives a really good and satisfying sense of progression. What this game does best is immersion. No HUD. Surroundings have lots of details and make it seem like a place that was really lived in. Sound is really good with atmospheric sounds and score and they follow what's going on with raised heartbeat and breathing of the protagonist for example. Graphics are not spectacular but good and work really well. Voice acting is of a high level and convinces. So while not really being horror it does regularly feel creepy and unsettling. and the immersion also gave some weight to the moral dilemma's you face, although you do need to be willing to engage in those situations. Advancing is often done through puzzle-like problems to solve and the game is not always clear in letting you know what needs to be done. Sometimes I found myself expecting a clue that never came. In it’s defense though, the solutions and the way to reach them did always make perfect sense eventually. And you are given the time to figure it out. Mostly a rewarding experience that way. Although, and that is my only real problem with the game, in some cases you are not given that time. There were two points in the game where I was being chased and expected to do something which ended up in randomly running while trying different things, then dying. When you need to repeat that process without knowing if you are even on the right track it becomes annoying. Product of skill and heart - 4,5/5