The music within SOMA is handled with care and helps set the mood, but I never really felt like it did much for what the game was going for. In Amnesia and the like, the music sets the eerie mood as scares could be around every corner. In SOMA, odds are that nothing will be around the corner, or at least nothing that you can’t just calmly walk around. The music does its best, but it can’t make up for the lackluster enemies that don’t really stalk you, or if they do just make your screen a bit fuzzy. Where it does work is with the voice work that the game has; it’s great. Seriously, the constant conversations that you have with your buddy, or yourself is enjoyable and keeps you engaged in what is going on.
So why am I not in love with SOMA? The issue comes down to it being a really slow burn with no real threat, coupled with some really annoying bugs that I just couldn’t get past. I played Amnesia right before SOMA, and I played a number of other newer titles, but for whatever reason SOMA just wouldn’t work right. No matter how many times I played, for whatever length, the game would save and once I tried to play again my save game would be lost. It wasn’t just me either, as the Steam forums also had a number of players with the same issues without a reliable fix. No matter what I tried, if I saved the game and quit, the game would eat the save and spit it out in some other universe. And if I got killed while playing, the game would just crash out and screw up the save file. It’s the 28th of September, so I waited before playing the game, but it still is broken on my PC. I was forced to play the game on my MacBook Pro, so thank goodness for Frictional Games supporting Mac, but it just sucks I was forced to that instead of the nice rig on my desk with the fancy monitor.
Ignoring the save bug, SOMA still just feels… bland. The monster encounters are more odd than scary with how they kill(?)/annoy the player. After a few instances you’ll feel less scared from seeing a monster, to feeling more annoyed for it ruining your exploration and searching for more bits of lore. The puzzles it offers are also all pretty bland and don’t require much thought. It’s a shame that the games fantastic story isn’t backed with fantastic gameplay. SOMA itself isn’t a long game, and even with the save bug I finished it in one good long sitting. SOMA ends up with a great and compelling story, backed with lovely visuals that is lost in some bland gameplay and lame monsters. If you loved the Amnesia games, you may be let down from the lack of jump scares here, and if you want to explore the amazing world, you’ll feel annoyed by the crap monsters.
SOMA should be commended for stepping a bit outside the box from the other games from Frictional Games, but it just isn’t the great game I was really hoping for. In the end SOMA just ends up as a middling sort of game that so desperately wants to be great and almost is.
“You feel as lost as the player character...”