• SOMA - Safe Mode Launch Trailer
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[hd]https://youtu.be/B86HqW9qaio[/hd] if you couldn't handle the spooky atmosphere or just wanted a better chance to explore the game world without being hunted down by monsters, here's your chance
They'll still spook you, but yeah, it seems the devs thought the idea of that one mod that makes it so you can play through the game without being attacked (if not remove the monsters outright) was a neat idea so they pretty much went and designed it so they don't try to kill you while still having respective behaviors for how they should inhabit the environment. So more of a tourism difficulty with effort than survival.
you can do this with alien isolation too iirc. someone just modded the xenomorph's ai file such that it does nothing once it spawns.
I will abide by my ways of being a pussy and not confronting my fears
Huge spoilers in that trailer it feels like. Also, it seems to come with new content, at least it definitely hints at that.
a small part of me kinda hopes they snuck a monster in halfway thru the game anyway
Minority opinion here, the monster encounters genuinely hampered SOMA It's such a compelling powerful narrative that I found myself genuinely irritated anytime a monster showed up because it just wasn't fun or interesting to hide from them, and stalled me from experiencing amazsing storytelling. This is the better way to play this game
[QUOTE=Dick Slamfist;52939826]Minority opinion here, the monster encounters genuinely hampered SOMA It's such a compelling powerful narrative that I found myself genuinely irritated anytime a monster showed up because it just wasn't fun or interesting to hide from them, and stalled me from experiencing amazsing storytelling. This is the better way to play this game[/QUOTE] Yeah, the monster sequences weren't really what the game was about IMO. They seemed kind of forced, like... Frictional didn't believe they had the ability to create a game where something wasn't chasing you because that's what players expected from them or something? To me, SOMA was made a good game by way of the story and this mode should allow for a tighter focus on that.
[QUOTE=Kommodore;52939657]you can do this with alien isolation too iirc. someone just modded the xenomorph's ai file such that it does nothing once it spawns.[/QUOTE] I might be weird but I honestly thought the funnest parts of Alien Isolation was when you were fighting shit besides the Xenomorph.
[QUOTE=silentjubjub;52939927]Yeah, the monster sequences weren't really what the game was about IMO. They seemed kind of forced, like... Frictional didn't believe they had the ability to create a game where something wasn't chasing you because that's what players expected from them or something.[/QUOTE] The monster sequences just weren't cohesive with the rest of the game. SOMA is primarily scary because of existential and psychological reasons. The monsters are scary in their own right but they aren't the right kind of scary that the rest of the game was going for.
[QUOTE=Dick Slamfist;52939826]Minority opinion here, the monster encounters genuinely hampered SOMA It's such a compelling powerful narrative that I found myself genuinely irritated anytime a monster showed up because it just wasn't fun or interesting to hide from them, and stalled me from experiencing amazsing storytelling. This is the better way to play this game[/QUOTE] Is that really a minority opinion? I've felt the same way since I played the game. I thought it was a common criticism of the game. The more "video gamey" aspects of the game, i.e., the hide from monsters stuff, was by far the worst part of the game. It never made for compelling gameplay and it always felt at odds with the game. At its worst, it prevented you from properly exploring an area because you're constantly on the run from something. The environmental storytelling of the game, as well as just the primary story itself, is top tier and the monster stuff really dragged the whole game down. It's the kind of game where you really want to take your time and explore every inch. There were multiple times in the game where I was wishing it was purely a "walking simulator" with puzzles rather than what it was on release.
[QUOTE=Why485;52940217]Is that really a minority opinion? I've felt the same way since I played the game. I thought it was a common criticism of the game. The more "video gamey" aspects of the game, i.e., the hide from monsters stuff, was by far the worst part of the game. It never made for compelling gameplay and it always felt at odds with the game. At its worst, it prevented you from properly exploring an area because you're constantly on the run from something. The environmental storytelling of the game, as well as just the primary story itself, is top tier and the monster stuff really dragged the whole game down. It's the kind of game where you really want to take your time and explore every inch. There were multiple times in the game where I was wishing it was purely a "walking simulator" with puzzles rather than what it was on release.[/QUOTE] The area with Yoshida is the worst example. There's an entire section of the map that lets you call up a certain someone, that you can't really access without making a dedicated run for it because tentacle-fucker will Hentai you to death mid-call. I'm pretty sure there's also a terminal. Another area with the big walking blob of cancer with arms, the medbay has an audio recording explaining just what happened to him, but that also just so happens to lure him over to that area. While you're trying to listen and not get spotted, you get to hear a fucking wendigo screeching into your ears with a complement of static due to being right next to him. I get that the game would have felt a bit boring if it was nothing more than a walking simulator, but honestly they could've solved that through multiple ways. They could've given you options to somehow kill/lock out the monsters that actually worked being one thing. You could still have the game go RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHG SPOOKY MONSTERS RUN while also giving you a way to solve the problem like jettisoning cancer-man out of the airlock and letting you explore freely.
[QUOTE=ForgottenKane;52939784]Huge spoilers in that trailer it feels like. Also, it seems to come with new content, at least it definitely hints at that.[/QUOTE] As far as I can tell there was nothing that wouldn't be revealed within the first hour anyway
The guy in the projection looks super cheesy and out of place, like they rushed it while the original game had hype going
I think this is a step in the right direction. Giving the player more game-experience-defining options. Not that I think they should never have added monsters in the game in the first place; in my opinion, every player should be able to decide for themselves if they want to play with monsters or not. If the game has value outside of its enemy encounters, then good on the devs for allowing players to enjoy it both ways. [editline]2nd December 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Kommodore;52939657]you can do this with alien isolation too iirc. someone just modded the xenomorph's ai file such that it does nothing once it spawns.[/QUOTE] I played Alien Isolation like this after playing it twice normally; it was obviously a much lesser experience. But I like the possibility since it allows to read everything calmly.
This may spur me to finish the game, I never did.
[QUOTE=Jojje;52940587]This may spur me to finish the game, I never did.[/QUOTE] What made you stop? Was it the Flesher? If so, my only advice is follow the floor lights to a set of stairs, go up, and then retrace your steps back to the escape pod once the tendrils have been pulled out. I have a feeling this is going to be of questionable use due to how vague it is, but it's the only thing I can remember clearly that I know got me through.
I think it would be neat if there was a sort of "AI director" type thing where the monsters could exist/attack you once, maybe twice during an entire playthrough. Like if the player knew there was an extremely low percentage of a chance that the regular game's monsters were around the corner. After getting attacked they spend the rest of the game going "Well now its REALLY unlikely I'll be attacked again, however [I]still technically possible[/I]!" And if it was their first time playing and they were unsure of how long the game is, they could be putting shit together for the plot going "if this is towards the end of the game and I havent been spooked yet, progressing with this puzzle is only making it worse!"
Still looks shit scary And I'm still a massive pussy
Does this remove the Fish? Those shouldn't count I don't think.
hands down the worst monster in the game s the discoball dude, it was genuinely frustrating dealing with him
i disagree that the enemy encounters detract from the game. However, I do feel that they weren't implemented very well. More often than not, the enemies are patrolling in an area that you absolutely must get through, so you're forced to do trial and error to get around them. The very last enemy encounter was indeed more-stressful than it was terrifying. I feel if that there were a better chance that you could slip by each enemy undetected, with the trade off of the audio/visual glitching having a larger radius, that it would add to the psychological horror aspect of the game.
[QUOTE=Jackald;52940627]Yeah, having knowledge that this [i]could[/i] be the time you have to run would make it tense without actually making it frustrating[/QUOTE] As Machine for pigs have demonstrated, the low probability of monsters appearing is only brick shitting for the first hour or so, the tension then progressively dies down as the player becomes more and more confident that nothing is ever going to attack him. Arguably the most effective jump scares are the ones that are just rare enough to maintain the possibility of them occurring again but not so rare that people stop anticipating them.
i like horror games and i like a challenge, but the enemies in SOMA were just kind of... annoying. enemies in these kinds of games lose all scare factor after the first death. then they just become frustrating obstacles. i can definitely see the merit in this, considering the game's wonderful story
[QUOTE=JerryAnderson;52940598]What made you stop? Was it the Flesher? If so, my only advice is follow the floor lights to a set of stairs, go up, and then retrace your steps back to the escape pod once the tendrils have been pulled out. I have a feeling this is going to be of questionable use due to how vague it is, but it's the only thing I can remember clearly that I know got me through.[/QUOTE] It was nothing in particular I just stopped playing one day like any other session and I never started it again because other shit got in the way.
[QUOTE=Rusty100;52940667]i like horror games and i like a challenge, but the enemies in SOMA were just kind of... annoying. enemies in these kinds of games lose all scare factor after the first death. then they just become frustrating obstacles. i can definitely see the merit in this, considering the game's wonderful story[/QUOTE] Agreed. They tried to alleviate this effect by making it so the first time a monster catches you it doesn't kill you, but after you figure this out the monsters become even less terrifying.
this discussion kind of makes me think of Silent Hill and it makes me wonder what was about the monsters in those games that made them so well implemented, was it the fact that you had a generous health bar or was it because they were expertly mixed into the atmosphere that made them work?
[QUOTE=genkaz92;52940666]As Machine for pigs have demonstrated, the low probability of monsters appearing is only brick shitting for the first hour or so, the tension then progressively dies down as the player becomes more and more confident that nothing is ever going to attack him. Arguably the most effective jump scares are the ones that are just rare enough to maintain the possibility of them occurring again but not so rare that people stop anticipating them.[/QUOTE] I remember in Dying Light I spend about 10 hours waiting for a zombie to jump out of a closet when you go searching through them. It didn't happen, so I thought I was safe. Towards the final parts of the game I open a closet and lo and behold a zombie bursts out of it and shits me right up.
[QUOTE=Thechuz1337;52940704]I remember in Dying Light I spend about 10 hours waiting for a zombie to jump out of a closet when you go searching through them. It didn't happen, so I thought I was safe. Towards the final parts of the game I open a closet and lo and behold a zombie bursts out of it and shits me right up.[/QUOTE] Yeah, but the problem is that you thought you were safe until then, which is not really a thing that is consistently supposed to happen I think. A horror game should definitely have segments that guarantee safety though. it's important to have a breather I played a little bit of Dying Light and it felt way too slowly paced, that and open world games that force you to explore also kind of bore me more often than not.
I stopped playing when I reached the monster that could detect if you were looking at it
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