Am I missing something or was this a solid 5/10?

Am I missing something or was this a solid 5/10?

>pretty graphics and amazing sound design
>gameplay that consists of walking to pick up audio/computer/paper logs advancing the story before enemies you can't fight are shoehorned in to pad the running time as clear forced 'we need to add scary enemies so this is still technically a horror game' sections
>story that consists of a very video game plot of 'we need this thing! now we need that thing! now we need those things to launch the final thing!'
>the ending is nothing. Your character and Catherine successfully put the remainder of humanity into the virtual ARK world and shoot it into space. Humanity lives on. Your original, second copy of Simon being left behind on PATHOS-II has no impact on anything except make you feel a little bad, as you felt with every single character you met whose fates you really had no control in since you stumbled across them in their already fucked state.

What was the whole point of the story? It reads as pretty empty 3deep5u teenager tries philosophy nonsense to me. SOMA using a lot of big words like 'free will' and 'consciousness' without actually saying anything with them.

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>big words like 'consciousness'
user you should avoid hurting yourself trying to comprehend large words like 'big'

user...
you're not simon, but a baseline personality copied million of times to make AI that came from simion's brain scan in the intro, which was used as that baseline
you play as a future linux copy code that THINKS its simon
also also, in the end you're the 3rd copy as your moved into the deep diving suit from the regular diving suit

>reads as pretty empty 3deep5u
-Stopped reading right there. This is always the automated response when NPC tries to argue anything remotely intellectual or artistic. It's not funny you smug prick, it's the equivalent of mock laughing during an argument, god you're such a smug toolit's unbearable. That's why you're stuck here instead of talkking with real friends. No one can stand you. Do you jnderstand? You are unpleasant to interract with and you don't even know it. Go ahead, make a smug, tepid retort you sperg. God what a tool.

holy fuck kid calm down

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the plot wasn't complicated. it's only tough to understand if you're like simon and need it spoonfed to you because you have fucking brain damage

>kid
You make my skin crawl. You can't help yourself.

>this a solid 5/10
Yep. Unremarkable "scary" game for twitch streamers to overreact to. But, it had some entry level philosophical questions, delivered like they're the shit, the biggest revelation, and retard ate it up. Babbys first teleportation paradox. Soma is always praised for its story, not gameplay.

> if you're like simon
My biggest gripe. Although, it was pretty brave of the devs to make MC a literal retard.

Yeah, I get that. But what's clever about that?

Sure, it's... Different. its a clever idea that gets you thinking about what it means to be human, what is consciousness, what is life or death etc when you see the other members of the research facility. Then SOMA does... Absolutely fuck all wiih that idea. It just raises the concept without any real answers or interesting exploration of it. It's a thematic gimmick adding 'depth' to a game where the gameplay is you walk around empty environments for 10 hours.

*THIS* is my point, you dense fucks. I'm glad to see someone gets my point.

Now do any of you high school philosophy students have a response to what the 'deeper' meaning is? Or are you all going to get very quiet now?

Goddamn, OP is proof there are nothing but retards on this board.

menchildren of this board like it cause they quite literally never read a fucking scifi book and the derivative and elementary theme and ending blew their tiny animal crossing minds

it's a 5, at best, and the idiots who'll tell you otherwise are the same that harshly criticize walking simulators

The game cheats and it's unfair.
The first time you transfer your "conciousness" or memories if you will, the player is transfered with it, same during the second transfer, but the game cheats it's own established rules by not transfering the player immediately after the final transfer. That's my biggest gripe.

what the fuck,so many retards in this thread

Alright. Since we've got fucking retards in here, time for a lesson in Ontology.

The original Simon died of brainitis in 2016. You are not the original Simon

The copy of Simon that is turned on at the start of Soma dies during the body swap (or afterwards, trapped) This is where the confusion starts, because they pulled a dumb and let you start playing as Simon 3 before Simon 2 died, making the ending seem confusing when it shouldn't be.

Simon 3 copies himself and Catherine to the ARK and sends her into space. This also is confusing, since the last time you copied yourself, you ended up on the other side.

This is even more confusing because of Catherine's flawed analogy: There is no coin flip: When you fork a mind, there's no discernable difference between the copy and the original. Both of you think you were the original, and there's no distinction between your minds. The coin flip is intentionally a bad analogy so that Simon 2 and 3 would think there's any opportunity they could just end up in the happy ending (When under every circumstance, an instance of him will die down there alone.)

SOMA should have been consistent: You should have explicitly died as Simon 2 as you shifted to Simon 3 (Catherine could reveal later that she shut you down so the "old" you couldn't confuse you). Likewise, in the finale, you should have ended up in the ARK with Catherine 2: Roll credits, and midway through go back to Simon 3 and Catherine 1 having their argument. You'd be faced with the truth that no one was "saved", just preserved.

I said the player, as in (You), not Simon. (You), the player transfer with every swap except the last one. It's a cheat.

There’s nothing in simons experience that tells him that he’ll get transferred to another body. The game treats you like a brainlet with Simon overreacting to everything.

The main problem was devs seriously underestimated the inteligence of the player and thus made Simon intentionally RETARDED.
Nevermind the lore implications of having a RETARD AI as basis for all your future AI (no wonder the gloop AI shit took over and fucked everyone up); the main gameplay problem that immediately arises is Catherine has to explain everything as if talking to a 9 year old to Simon (and thus the player).

Any depth the game could have had is immediately thrown out the window (how could Catherine even maintain a deep conversation with a mental retard) and instead has to continuously mislead Simon with intentionally bad analogies so she can lead him on with a carrot on a stick.

It suffers from everything that's currently wrong with SJW shit in gaming (a smart woman babysits a dumb MC) and cranks it up to 11 - and shits all over all possible philosophical depth while at it.

It's a game that was doomed to be shit the moment they decided Simon was a retard.

The way so many people were talking about the game like it's this really deep philosophical experience always put me off of playing it, even though I liked both Penumbra games and Amnesia, and even though I got it from PS+ a while ago.
Generally speaking, I've found that any sci-fi book, movie or game that gets praised by the masses for its philosophical themes is probably tacking some beginner-level crap like the ship of theseus or "what if machines become conscious". It's the sort of shit that's been tackled hundreds of times over the past couple millennia, and yet the people writing these stories always present it as if it's some huge mind-blowing realization that no one's ever thought about before. What's more, these people place so much importance on the message that it overshadows all other aspects of the story, to the point where they're more concerned with saying something "smart" than with writing a good story.

>Generally speaking, I've found that any sci-fi book, movie or game that gets praised by the masses for its philosophical themes is probably tacking some beginner-level crap like the ship of theseus or "what if machines become conscious"
Sure, like Nier Automata am I right?

It's a game that treats players as mental midgets. If you're retarded, you love it. If you're already familiar with its concepts, you fucking hate it.

So now you know which camp you belong to.

Never played it

You're honest, so you didn't fall for it, that's something at least.

TL/DR:
>Devs make design choice that Simon is retarded
>meaning all future AI based on his template is retarded as well. Makes no sense.
>Every in-game explanation has to be toned down to "retard-level" for previous design choice.
>Game is thereby limited to "retard-level" interaction and philosophy.

A single design choice fucked up the entire game.

Nail. On. Fucking. Head. Friendo. If you strip away the themes, you know what you get? A ten hour fetch quest walking simulator to launch a spaceship with no characters except for Catherine, who doesn't really have a personality. And all the 'story' elements just exist to make you think about 'BUT IS WE HUMAN OR ROBOT???' more. 'We get it, have you got anything else, Mr. Soma?' 'No, sir. That's our whole menu.'

That's my problem and disappointment with it. I thought if the gameplay would be bland as fuck that at least it'd try and say something clever... And it really doesn't. It just raises the AI concept without saying a lick of anything special about it.

>soma thread
>brainlet complaining
Like always

It's not even a necessary element: Catherine could simply lie.It's already a plot beat that she's the closest thing to human contact he still has; she just needs to manipulate him more.

A mentally competent Simon just needs to be more emotionally desperate, which would also make his reactions more understandable. His meltdown in the finale would make a great deal more sense if he realizes he's been played from the start, and his pathetic state when Catherine burns herself out all the more tragic, since he's still desperate even to hear from a being that low-key hates him for not being one of her "brilliant" collegues.

How can the game transmit anything deep to the player when you're literally RPing as a retard?

So is this just the latest reddit meme that i am not getting, or has this place truly fallen so far that it makes Facebook look appealing.

Man, imagine if crew tablets would hold interesting conversations a-la Talos Principle, meanwhile the MC is all "I don't get this shit cuz i'm retarded" and Catherine lies to him to motivate him on his quest.

Bam. Game instantly 2x better.

That means they designed it like that. They can do better. *cough*BioShhock*cough*.

What exactly is wrong with "entry level philosophy"? I seriously don't understand this criticism. If you want an intellectual challenge you can read Jung or Lacan, this is a piece of entertainment and it's on the same level as an episode of the revered Twilight Zone. I get that there are highly intellectual people browsing this board with very high iq, but the main criticism isn't the themes or narrative imo, it's the barebones gameplay that is by the numbers and identical to every single game by Frictional games..