SOMA

Having played the Penumbra Series and Amnesia, I was pleasantly surprised to find Soma, and immediately plopped down my US dollars. Frictional Games have supported Linux for years, so I support Frictional Games. Windows crashed on me for the last time years ago. The Linux version of Soma doesn't disappoint. Everything worked perfectly at surprisingly fast framerates. The game doesn't push the graphics envelope, so there's no suspension of disbelief caused by dipping framerates. It's creepy, immersive, and the quiet is deafening!

A being with an intellect will strive to understand itself, learn about themselves, be itself. will make questions, will look for answer, but not knowing what or where to look... usually destroys that very thing it seek. SOMA is an ambitious, cerebral and well crafted sci-fi horror-adventure, something much more meaningful buried underwater, beneath the oceans. Complex and dark, the detailed world, marvelous background design (visually it's amazing) tension and oppressive atmosphere, the pulsating music, creepy and solid sound effects, great voice acting, smarter writing and well designed, disconcerting ambiguity, a frightening journey into the mysterious depths and the self-be. Everything will get under your skin... stuck in your mind. It's not about a game, a scare, a history, the horror... it's beyond that, it's about the importance of consciousness and essence of humanity.

Has a great thought provoking story about what it means to be human. Some of the enemies are annoying as others may say but they add a needed change of flow to the gameplay. Without them to break up the plot and puzzle sections it wouldn't have been the same. Playing hide and seek with the enemies is pretty thrilling but it's not in the same league as Penumbra/Amnesia. That's fine with me as this game isn't going for maximum horror like the aforementioned games. It's utterly gorgeous. The environments remind me of Doom 3 mixed with Bioshock i.e. extremely realistic industrial areas mixed with decay caused by the ocean.

Just finished this and am very pleased with it. The story is fantastic and drives the game more than it did in Amnesia. There's plenty of great atmosphere and horror segments though. Highly recommended for fans of sci-fi horror and those who enjoy a good story.