• SOMA is a proper Amnesia follow-up: no cutscenes, no combat, just cold-blooded terror
    32 replies, posted
[url]http://www.pcgamesn.com/indie/soma-proper-amnesia-follow-no-cutscenes-no-combat-just-cold-blooded-terror[/url]
This sounds really promising with every update.
Everything looks great except for the voice acting
looks better and more original than how Outlast originally looked
Does it really need the voice acting?
the voice acting is okay i liked it actually but i was hoping the environment would look a little more sterile
~something remotely spooky happens~ -WHEEZING, HEAVY BREATHING- "OH GOD, GOD, WH-WHAT IS THIS?" -Heavy breathing- ~some dark area~ -huffing and panting- Am I playing an unbelievable fat person, or what? Also you should be able to see yourself, specially when opening doors. This floating invisible man bullshit in games is really becoming too common, it just sparks laziness by the devs.
There won't be voice acting, at least not that character's voice. That was someone made for the trailer, he's not the main character.
It's Frictional Games, so you KNOW it's gonna be good. So it's going to be for PC and PS4? It looks like consoles are finally going to get a proper horror game, after all these years!
I can't help but feel this might be talking a bit much in design from Geiger, rather than something different ya know? Just a small opinion.
Mmmm wall physics.
[QUOTE=Pvt. Martin;42504964]I can't help but feel this might be talking a bit much in design from Geiger, rather than something different ya know? Just a small opinion.[/QUOTE] Nah. Geiger is megadark and organic. This feels more like aboveground in The Matrix, which is even cooler.
I like the voice-acting, maybe it's just not great and this will sound far-fetched but to be honest I'm guessing this takes place far in the future and I doubt we'll talk the same way then like we do now, I dunno :v:
I think the best thing about this is the semi penumbra feel due to it not being in a medieval world I think Penumbra was much more interesting than Amnesia, and longer at that. Frictional games has the [U]ideal model[/U] for what you want to look for in a [B]GOOD [/B]horror game. You are worthless and cannot defend yourself, so the only thing you can do is hide and pray you survive. You don't have super powers and not a "Badass solder dude" like in Fear or others, you aren't fighting the typical bullshit "Grr mean poltergeist" or "Generic boring zombies" antagonist. No, it's far worse, in fact, you're also fighting your own weakness, as well as inconceivable monsters, as well as the completely unknown. The biggest thing about it is that you genuine have no way to predict what will happen next. I seem to have the ability to go "Yeah, I bet a big bad guys up in the next room" and literally, exactly that happens in horror. I can't do that with frictional games.
[QUOTE=J!NX;42505255]I think the best thing about this is the semi penumbra feel due to it not being in a medieval world I think Penumbra was much more interesting than Amnesia, and longer at that. Frictional games has the [U]ideal model[/U] for what you want to look for in a [B]GOOD [/B]horror game.[/QUOTE] I loved both Penumbra and Amnesia, the Penumbra setting was cool but I personally preferred the Amnesia mid 19th century feel it had. One thing I will say though is that if there is any game company that comes close to being the Lovecraft of games it's definitely Frictional Games, I mean Penumbra itself had a lot of lovecraftian vibes to it, then we get Amnesia which is even more so and now this SOMA while definitely more technological sci-fi, I think it still reeks of the Lovecraftian stuff too. [editline]13th October 2013[/editline] The thing about the games that make them so scary in my opinion is that they manage to set the mood so well that before the player even gets to a monster-inhabited area he's made up his mind that whatever happens he does not want to encounter that monster, unlike in many other "horror" games where they just throw the monsters at you (Silent Hill, Fatal Frame, Condemned, Fear etc". Amnesia is a pretty good example where I have gone through more than one monster-inhabited area in the game without ever actually encountering one and still been shitting my pants, because just knowing that there [B]may[/B] be a monster around the corner is scarier than knowing there is one, it's that helpless ignorance :v:
[QUOTE=J!NX;42505255]The biggest thing about it is that you genuine have no way to predict what will happen next.[/QUOTE] i can honestly say that in 90% of horror games since the second Penumbra game, it'll either involve me crouching, or me crouching then sprinting a bit. i mean i like Penumbra and Amnesia but they really have all the nuance of crouching in the dark and staring at your feet for five minutes, which is, funny enough, basically how both games play. [editline]13th October[/editline] my point is that there is very little meat in these gym mats
[QUOTE=MrJazzy;42505277]I loved both Penumbra and Amnesia, the Penumbra setting was cool but I personally preferred the Amnesia mid 19th century feel it had. One thing I will say though is that if there is any game company that comes close to being the Lovecraft of games it's definitely Frictional Games, I mean Penumbra itself had a lot of lovecraftian vibes to it, then we get Amnesia which is even more so and now this SOMA while definitely more technological sci-fi, I think it still reeks of the Lovecraftian stuff too. [editline]13th October 2013[/editline] The thing about the games that make them so scary in my opinion is that they manage to set the mood so well that before the player even gets to a monster-inhabited area he's made up his mind that whatever happens he does not want to encounter that monster, unlike in many other "horror" games where they just throw the monsters at you (Silent Hill, Fatal Frame, Condemned, Fear etc". Amnesia is a pretty good example where I have gone through more than one monster-inhabited area in the game without ever actually encountering one and still been shitting my pants, because just knowing that there [B]may[/B] be a monster around the corner is scarier than knowing there is one, it's that helpless ignorance :v:[/QUOTE] If I wrote a book, I would choose Fantasy first. A skyrim world mixed in with a shitload of alchemy and ancient arcane mysteries. Fantasy can be dark but for me it is more about being "Wonderous" than scifi can be, which makes it good for many stories scifi can't quite do If I wrote a game, I would choose normal space scifi, or post-scifi first, which is not quite post apoc, more, mankind has unlocked technology so advanced that it literally shakes the very foundation of the universe itself, so they try and recreate a world in its own image as gods. Horror? I'd mix them together. Using technology from the future to unlock secrets of the past, and ending up possibly destroying all time and space along with it. I think the idea of having the choice or being able to my mistake wipe out humanity itself completely would be a pretty cool thing in a horror game to worry about while you're being chased by a bunch of robot zombies with tentacle faces, maybe add some crazy nazi bullshit, I don't know, I never wrote a horror anything, so I never put thought into it. [QUOTE=Cone;42505345]i can honestly say that in 90% of horror games since the second Penumbra game, it'll either involve me crouching, or me crouching then sprinting a bit. i mean i like Penumbra and Amnesia but they really have all the nuance of crouching in the dark and staring at your feet for five minutes, which is, funny enough, basically how both games play.[/QUOTE] Aside from Frictional games you'll find me not giving a shit and actually running into a "Super spooky dooky room" where a huge monster is meant to be but I very much doubt that I'm going to do this in Soma. Why the fuck do I want to deal with running into a room without a gun and immediately get lynched by some vagina faced sumo wrestler with spikey hands? If I have a gun sure, it's easy as hell, but Frictional is different from other horror games. Frictional knows best.
Amnesia is hardly less sci-fi than Penumbra was though... Like yeah there are more supernatural elements in Amnesia but I wouldn't exactly call Penumbra a sci-fi game, the line between sci-fi and fantasy is very thin.
People keep saying SOMA is similar to the SCP Foundation's style of horror, but either that's really vague or those people don't know shit because I'm really not seeing it.
[QUOTE=MrJazzy;42505527]Amnesia is hardly less sci-fi than Penumbra was though... Like yeah there are more supernatural elements in Amnesia but I wouldn't exactly call Penumbra a sci-fi game, the line between sci-fi and fantasy is very thin.[/QUOTE] with the right ways of telling it, scifi and fantasy have literally no difference in one another Golems in scifi are mechs or robots alchemy is chemistry Curse of the living dead VS Virus of the living dead hell, best of all Arcane magic... arcane technology. Resurrection, reanimating the dead, genetically engineering (transmutation spells or potions), gravity gun VS staff of telekinesis. Sometimes it might even being down only to changing a bunch of names and bam, Half Life is now a fantasy story. In the end it's all about perspective. It's harder to take darker fantasy as serious as dark scifi for me, but others cannot stand scifi bar none.
[QUOTE=Cone;42505345]i can honestly say that in 90% of horror games since the second Penumbra game, it'll either involve me crouching, or me crouching then sprinting a bit. i mean i like Penumbra and Amnesia but they really have all the nuance of crouching in the dark and staring at your feet for five minutes, which is, funny enough, basically how both games play. [editline]13th October[/editline] my point is that there is very little meat in these gym mats[/QUOTE] I won't argue with you on this, the gameplay in these kind of games isn't exactly the deepest but I don't see how you're gonna make the gameplay with any depth without taking away from the immersion. Personally I would like to see more puzzles like in the original Penumbra and the first Amnesia (though personally I found them really easy). [editline]13th October 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=J!NX;42505583]with the right ways of telling it, scifi and fantasy have literally no difference in one another Golems in scifi are mechs or robots alchemy is chemistry Curse of the living dead VS Virus of the living dead hell, best of all Arcane magic... arcane technology. Resurrection, reanimating the dead, genetically engineering (transmutation spells or potions), gravity gun VS staff of telekinesis. Sometimes it might even being down only to changing a bunch of names and bam, Half Life is now a fantasy story.[/QUOTE] My point exactly. Personally, following the plot of Amnesia in depth it definitely doesn't feel like fantasy, at all, not really sci-fi either but rather that lovecraftian "This shit is too fucking weird and complex for you to comprehend" feeling.
Outlast is a good example of what i mean. something happens, you run, you hide in a closet, and if you don't make it to the closet then you die because alternatives to the closet are currently unavailable. you're not actually surviving in this survival horror game, you're pressing shift and W to not die in a variety of interesting and ultimately irrelevant locales for a few hours before the game ends. you know what game does combat best? Siren. you can kill dudes, if you get lucky in a fight, but whether or not you think it's really ever an option is left to you, you could just sneak around them with some difficulty - and they'll come back to life anyway, so that's just more for you to take into account. you'll have to actually make a decision here to survive, and neither choice is really looking all that pretty, and you've got this freakish audio in your ear and scary dudes all around you and you can't see shit. so, which one is it gonna be man? you are not just sitting aimlessly in the dark or running into a closet - the situation is rapidly decaying, and the game is pressuring you into action through horrible sounds and worse sights. the fact that you actually need to think while all this is going on, and think well and quickly, adds tension in the gameplay as well as in the plot and atmosphere, and makes the whole experience stressful and fatiguing. it's literally all of the pluses of having combat with none of the downsides; you're still frightened and helpless, but the game has a strategic and stressful depth that games like Penumbra Black Plague and Amnesia just don't have. it's an extra level to fuck with you on, and just straight-up removing it just seems like a hasty, lazily-done amputation.
If the game puts on a good enough mood, just holding shift and pressing w trying to find a closet to hide in can be the most intense and immersive thing ever, really, and while I haven't played Outlast or seen enough of it to judge, Amnesia certainly makes it pretty damn eerie.
[QUOTE=Cone;42505629]Outlast is a good example of what i mean. something happens, you run, you hide in a closet, and if you don't make it to the closet then you die because alternatives to the closet are currently unavailable. you're not actually surviving in this survival horror game, you're pressing shift and W to not die in a variety of interesting and ultimately irrelevant locales for a few hours before the game ends. you know what game does combat best? Siren. you can kill dudes, if you get lucky in a fight, but whether or not you think it's really ever an option is left to you, you could just sneak around them with some difficulty - and they'll come back to life anyway, so that's just more for you to take into account. you'll have to actually make a decision here to survive, and neither choice is really looking all that pretty, and you've got this freakish audio in your ear and scary dudes all around you and you can't see shit. so, which one is it gonna be man? you are not just sitting aimlessly in the dark or running into a closet - the situation is rapidly decaying, and the game is pressuring you into action through horrible sounds and worse sights. the fact that you actually need to think while all this is going on, and think well and quickly, adds tension in the gameplay as well as in the plot and atmosphere, and makes the whole experience stressful and fatiguing. it's literally all of the pluses of having combat with none of the downsides; you're still frightened and helpless, but the game has a strategic and stressful depth that games like Penumbra Black Plague and Amnesia just don't have. it's an extra level to fuck with you on, and just straight-up removing it just seems like a hasty, lazily-done amputation.[/QUOTE] Outlast is based off Frictional but its a "Dumbed down" kinda thing, way more simple. Well, maybe not dumbed, but, not puzzle based and way more about chases.
Whenever I read SOMA I think of the drug from A Brave New World.
Meh. Amnesia type games have gotten boring.
[QUOTE=Rethill34;42506395]Meh. Amnesia type games have gotten boring.[/QUOTE] Or maybe it could be that nobody can do the Amnesia type games right? [editline]13th October 2013[/editline] (Besides Frictional Games)
Uuuuhhhh. [quote]First I guess I have to settle the big debate: Are these inspired by SCP? And, yes they are! That was actually the pitch for the whole thing: [B]"Let's have some SCP-like texts on the website to give out spooky and fragmented info before the final trailer is released.". The game itself is however not very close to the SCP-style at all.[/B] There are some SCP inspiration in SOMA for sure, but it is a lot more subtle and has to do with how we think about monsters and artifacts. They play a larger role now, the foreboding is much deeper and there is a bigger connection with them and the central themes in the game. Actually, a lot of the SOMA's themes are directly expressed through interactions with enemies, an idea that stems from SCP.[/quote] [url]http://frictionalgames.blogspot.ru/2013/10/soma-officially-revealed.html[/url] If the game doesn't have anything like in those live action trailers, I'm gonna be slightly disappointed.
[QUOTE=qwerty000;42507465]Uuuuhhhh. [url]http://frictionalgames.blogspot.ru/2013/10/soma-officially-revealed.html[/url] If the game doesn't have anything like in those live action trailers, I'm gonna be slightly disappointed.[/QUOTE] They're probably just twisting it so people won't say it's an SCP ripoff.
[QUOTE=qwerty000;42507465]Uuuuhhhh. [url]http://frictionalgames.blogspot.ru/2013/10/soma-officially-revealed.html[/url] If the game doesn't have anything like in those live action trailers, I'm gonna be slightly disappointed.[/QUOTE] Well, it probably won't be anything like in the trailers - if you checked the gameplay trailer the enviroment looks totally different - I'm guessing the videos are just backstory just like when they teased for A Machine For Pigs and The Dark Descent. [editline]13th October 2013[/editline] I don't know buch about the SCP stuff I haven't read any of it so I don't know what you guys are saying about it being familiar and stuff
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