How is SOMA? I'm considering it

tired of match making lobbies sold all my online games and looking to get back into single player survival horror. I already have outlast, evil within, re 1. I'm considering SOMA or the new Layers of Fear but I'm not much into warping rooms/ hallways.

Is SOMA recommended and how does it compare to the games above? The only other survival horror I haven't played this gem is alien isolation. Do you guys recommend that instead?

Funny I just beat SOMA on PS4 like 2 days ago and got it on sale during PSN sale back in January. The story is good, it's not scary at all, and does the whole vulnerable chase sequence thing far, far worse than Amnesia/Outlast/Alien. It's not an amazing game in my opinion, but the story is pretty neat and worth going through the lackluster gameplay.

@davillain-: ok that sounds bad then. Since I can find alien isolation for cheaper guess I'll try that out for now, thanks

Both of these games are bad horror games, but at least SOMA kept my interest with its world and story. Alien isolation is terrible, it's a 20 hour boring slog.

@JangoWuzHere: ok so can I skip these two completely? Have I already played the best selection of horror offered so far? Not getting a PC anytime soon

SOMA is good and can be found cheap

@cv1989: Until Dawn is pretty good, at least from what I've heard.

Doesn't feel like a horror game, but it's pretty good. A must play if you are a fan of Fictional Games. SOMA pretty much proved that they are not a one-trick pony.

Its good if you mod it so that the monsters dont attack.

Ok so which one should I try between SOMA, Until Dawn, Alien Isolation.

I love the chase sequences of Outlast and the bullet sponge, heavy damage zombies from Evil Wthin

SOMA is a great experience. If you like heavy psychological stories it is the clear winner. If you can immerse yourself in a universe and take it for what it is it is freaking great.

Isn't the game like 30 bucks? @lamprey263 said to me that it is a bit too much compared to what the game has to offer.

@cv1989: The most complete, terrifying and unique out of these is defo Alien, which is also a 20-25 hour game depending on your cynicism, level of desensitization and difficulty level you choose. I strongly recommend Hard even on your first playthrough.

Wait for some kind of sale, the $30 selling point was too much, I wouldn't pay more than $20 for it. The story was mostly good, there were some twisted twists in the story that I kind of saw coming a mile away but I won't spoil for you. There's no replay value to it.

I'm with @Salt_The_Fries on this, if you haven't played Alien: Isolation, get that instead, way better game and cheaper to boot.

Just curious, have you tried:

• The Evil Within
• State of Decay: Year One Survival Edition
• Zombie Army Trilogy
• Dying Light
• Outlast
• Metro Redux
• Resident Evil Remaster
• Until Dawn

Might be something to consider if you haven't played those.

Avoid RE0 Remaster and RE Revelations 2 if it can be helped.

It's very good, story is fantastic and had one really good Monster sequence, otherwise the monsters get a little tedious

SOMA's story is probably about as interesting and thought provoking as a linear sci-fi video game can get. The voice talent, art, and sound design make it worth the purchase.

I wouldn't go into it too much for horror though. While there are plenty of horror elements, it isn't that scary outside a couple parts, especially if you're used no-weapon horror games. It's better to think of SOMA as an adventure/puzzle game, that happens to have some horror and is in a horror setting. The monsters are a bit of a let down. They don't really harass or surprise you as much as other games, so once you've learned their rules, getting around them becomes a chore instead of a opportunity for scares. By the end, you'll probably wish monsters would stop showing up because you're far more interested in seeing the next area of the story.

Until Dawn is so bad I agreed with blueinheaven on something. That's really bad.

It's one of the best games I've ever played.

It's one of the most thought provoking experiences I have ever went through.

So at first I hear people say consistently that it's like Amnesia but worse.
Then it suddenly became more popular than Amnesia.
I'm kind of confused about it myself.
But it sounds like it's slightly worse than Amnesia but also less scary so way more people could actually play it without running to their mommy.

From this thread I gather the story is really good? I might give it a shot too.

its definitely overrated, SOMA is better

I would recommend not playing Alien until you get access to some kind of VR. It's like 5 times more intense.

It's easy: it's different from Amnesia.

Some people liked the overpresence of scares and horror in Amnesia, Some people don't.

I personally thought Amnesia was a very boring game. It did do a lot of things right, it just never captured me like SOMA did.

SOMA nails the atmosphere, it nails the story, it nails what it is trying to tell you. Scares and horror aren't as present as in Amnesia. But don't be mistaken: there is still a lot of stuff to do in this game gameplay wise, there is still so much to take in.

So yeah, I would class Amnesia real low and not really recommend it to anyone. While SOMA is by far one of the best games I've ever played. And Frictional is on my radar now as a great developer (again, I didn't really look into SOMA at first because apart from the setting that interested me, their previous games did not)

But I can totally see how other people think different about it.

SOMA feels like a mix of a few games:

it has the atmosphere of Bioshock, including the first-person view. The controls remind me of those in Heavy Rain's except SOMA's controls are a delight with keyboard and mouse. The lack of weapons and relying on sound/visual cues to avoid enemies remind me of Amnesia, The Dark Descent.

SOMA isn't scary. But, there is enough tension in there. I put it in the same vein as Heavy Rain and Alan Wake because those games were more adventure-heavy.

I think SOMA is scary in a few locations.

What I also liked is that each enemy is encountered only once, so you never know what to expect when you encounter the next enemy. And that's tense !

Loved it, easily worth the money.

I'm not sure how far I've gone in SOMA. I know I have been outside a couple of times. Tense is the correct term rather than scary. There are plenty of tense moments in the game.

SOMA illustrates what playing many games without weapons or a UI is like. When you don't know what's coming, it brings a lot of tension. You start turning to other senses, looking for movement or listening for sounds.

It's like my younger nephew. He's used to playing FPS games the regular way. He played Crysis 3 (last year) on my PC with the UI completely off. He went from run and gun to slowing down and cautiously looking around. If I didn't know better, he was shaking like a leaf. He He.

They have different focus.

Amnesia is a very good horror game with a tacked-on story, Soma is a very good story-driven game with tacked-on horror elements.

It's worth mentioning that it's also a quite flawed game. Which is not due to a lack of heart or effort but most likely inexperience of the developer in this genre. Most of my friends couldn't get around these many little flaws and beat the game.

Personally, i enjoyed A:I a great deal and recommend it to any and all horror fans, but your mileage may vary.

Great game for me i finish it last month not better of alien isolation and until dawn for me

I hope this comes to Xbone eventually... looks cool.

I'd recommend ponying up an extra $10 and getting Until Dawn (if you're playing it on PS4), finally got around to play it today and haven't been able to put it down. I'm definitely going to need to play this at least a few more times to explore different outcomes, that's for sure. It's like glorified telltale game, and a love letter to the horror genre in all its forms. And just when you think you have it figured out it has a nice twist to it.

Anyhow, based on the early teaser of Soma I thought it'd be a lot different. But it's like they changed course somewhere along the way....

Soma is pretty cool it has darkness and kewl stuff like that