From the creators of Amnesia: The Dark Descent comes SOMA, a sci-fi horror game set below the waves of the Atlantic ocean. Struggle to survive a hostile world that will make you question your very existence.
Amazing game. I have a bit of a rant to go on about certain a character’s actions.
Tap for spoiler
The way Simon reacts to basically everything hurts me, especially his comments after a certain kind of suicide.
Do any of you who’ve played it actually relate to Simon like not getting the memo and being a fucking dick to Cathrine?
Like I probably would have been scared out of my mind by the fucking monsters, but I’ve thought about transhumanism before so the way the brain scan stuff works did not and would not phase me.
The game is beautiful and terrifying but like god damn I wish I could choose the dialog options. Simon needs to calm down and shut up sometimes.
Freaking out about the unspeakable horrors in the depths would have been fine.
Freaking out because you didn’t ask enough questions to comprehend what was going on and then blaming your only friend who is trapped in this hell with you is not okay.
Sure Catherine is able to do some stuff without conscience but you’re a complete moron and a dick Simon and that’s worse, especially in a situation like this.
Simon is definitely ‘out of his depth’, and while the player is generally smarter than he is there are a couple ways I rationalized his reactions. Spoilers below contain all major plot points and I strongly recommend anyone reading this play the game.
spoiler
Simon repeatedly demonstrates he has no idea how he ‘came to be’ on PATHOS-II; he doesn’t understand the mechanisms involved in his arrival.
When/if the player discovers the recordings in Catherine’s lab, it’s up to the player to realize that Simon 1.0 lived on after his brain scan; If my memory serves correctly Simon does not comment on the events that happen after his scan. Just that there’s a recording of him.
Even all the transcripts about ‘continuity’ showed that the real people in PATHOS-II had trouble understanding the process; the person who sits in the chair is never the one that carries over. Admittedly this is the core debate of the story; people who look at it mechanically vs people who believe in a higher consciousness. I’m a mechanical guy.
In regards to his emotional outbursts on the lift; All of WAU’s creations seem to have problem regulating emotion. Speculated to be due to physical limitations of the hardware they’re trapped in. Even though Simon is the most stable, it’s still reasonable to think that there are either logical processing limitations due to his “flat scan”, or processing limitations of the cortex chip when presented with something as complicated as a human intelligence.
Even if we’re going to presume he is as Catherine described; “a sound mind in a sound body”, this could just be his breaking point. The underwater facility. WAU’s creations. The physical trauma of the train crash. The terror of being hunted by the psychotic helper robots. Maybe that’s just his limit.
That’s all in defense of Simon 3.0’s reaction about the events surrounding the powersuit.
I have no defense for his reaction at the end. From a narrative experience it makes sense that we wouldn’t immediately wake up on the ark; but he’s been through this before. Limitations aside, he’s got no excuse.
Though, this actually leads me to a side-theory about Catherine’s ultimate fate; that she seemed ‘uniquely suited’ to being trapped in an omnitool because of her lack of strong emotion - but what if she recognized the limitations of her environment? The one time she becomes truely emotional is when the omnitool dies.
Amazing game. I have a bit of a rant to go on about certain a character’s actions.
Tap for spoiler
The way Simon reacts to basically everything hurts me, especially his comments after a certain kind of suicide.
Do any of you who’ve played it actually relate to Simon like not getting the memo and being a fucking dick to Cathrine?
Like I probably would have been scared out of my mind by the fucking monsters, but I’ve thought about transhumanism before so the way the brain scan stuff works did not and would not phase me.
The game is beautiful and terrifying but like god damn I wish I could choose the dialog options. Simon needs to calm down and shut up sometimes.
Freaking out about the unspeakable horrors in the depths would have been fine.
Freaking out because you didn’t ask enough questions to comprehend what was going on and then blaming your only friend who is trapped in this hell with you is not okay.
Sure Catherine is able to do some stuff without conscience but you’re a complete moron and a dick Simon and that’s worse, especially in a situation like this.
Simon is definitely ‘out of his depth’, and while the player is generally smarter than he is there are a couple ways I rationalized his reactions. Spoilers below contain all major plot points and I strongly recommend anyone reading this play the game.
spoiler
Simon repeatedly demonstrates he has no idea how he ‘came to be’ on PATHOS-II; he doesn’t understand the mechanisms involved in his arrival.
When/if the player discovers the recordings in Catherine’s lab, it’s up to the player to realize that Simon 1.0 lived on after his brain scan; If my memory serves correctly Simon does not comment on the events that happen after his scan. Just that there’s a recording of him.
Even all the transcripts about ‘continuity’ showed that the real people in PATHOS-II had trouble understanding the process; the person who sits in the chair is never the one that carries over. Admittedly this is the core debate of the story; people who look at it mechanically vs people who believe in a higher consciousness. I’m a mechanical guy.
In regards to his emotional outbursts on the lift; All of WAU’s creations seem to have problem regulating emotion. Speculated to be due to physical limitations of the hardware they’re trapped in. Even though Simon is the most stable, it’s still reasonable to think that there are either logical processing limitations due to his “flat scan”, or processing limitations of the cortex chip when presented with something as complicated as a human intelligence.
Even if we’re going to presume he is as Catherine described; “a sound mind in a sound body”, this could just be his breaking point. The underwater facility. WAU’s creations. The physical trauma of the train crash. The terror of being hunted by the psychotic helper robots. Maybe that’s just his limit.
That’s all in defense of Simon 3.0’s reaction about the events surrounding the powersuit.
I have no defense for his reaction at the end. From a narrative experience it makes sense that we wouldn’t immediately wake up on the ark; but he’s been through this before. Limitations aside, he’s got no excuse.
Though, this actually leads me to a side-theory about Catherine’s ultimate fate; that she seemed ‘uniquely suited’ to being trapped in an omnitool because of her lack of strong emotion - but what if she recognized the limitations of her environment? The one time she becomes truely emotional is when the omnitool dies.