SOMA

By far this is worst game they made. It's absolute walking simulation. Layer of levels and story-logs is finished. Gameplay not exist here. There is even no items-menu here. You can throw thinngs around but they are useless here. This is almost like System Shock 2 but at level where only locations is designed and logs...but whole other basics of game not - gameplay. This is really bad game. This is only story in unfinished project...very bad game indeed like their Amnesia Machine for Pigs....Still their best game is Penumbra but still this is really far from System Shock 2....They should make something like that with that engine of throwing things for puzzles.

I really enjoyed this game at first, it had interesting visuals, and an interesting story and atmosphere. Then it turned into a hiding simulator. I don't mind monsters in games like this (Amnesia was great) but here they seem tacked on as an annoyance rather than an obstacle to overcome with wit or skill. When I got past the monster my main thought was "I'm glad that annoyance is over", but then you come up on another one. Plus there are scripted "chase" segments that just don't fit. Another thing I didn't like was the addition of music. This obscured environmental sounds and made it harder to tell where the monsters were, for instance. I think in a game like this purely environmental sounds are necessary to maintain real immersion. I don't want to make this sound too negative as there is a lot of good in the game and I think a lot of other people will enjoy it, but I ultimately found it less satisfying.

+

The story is nice, setting is interesting, but oh lawd the game is so boooooring. Lots of walking, pulling some switches and levers, but artificial extending of play time (by creating unnecesary long paths, wheren even running feels like crawling) is seriously irritating. Occasional monsters here and there force you to do some sneaking, but mostly it's just a walking simulator, which should be half as long at most. Got it for free, wasn't amused. PS: Game takes over 20GB of space and I can't figure why - assets are repetitive, and I've seen sharper textures in smaller games.

This game is the gem in Frictional's crown. I finished it in 17 hours and I'm ready to play it again. Just... wow.