[rspeele]

SOMA was wonderful. Maybe it helped that I didn't have really high expectations going in -- I pretty much thought "more horror like Amnesia, but in a new setting". So I went into it blind.

But it ended up being one of those experiences that you keep thinking about for a few days afterwards. And it's a rare video game that I think would have lost its impact as a movie or a book, despite not having much gamey stuff to do (it's practically in the walking simulator category).

The philosophical questions it brings up may not be anything new, but the game does an excellent job of putting the humanity in them and making you really consider what it would feel like to be in the circumstances of its characters -- not just the playable ones or the ones they interact with directly, but the ones you find audio logs and transcripts from.

Edit: I should also note that I played The Talos Principle shortly after playing SOMA and was struck by a couple similarities they have. Talos is a much less story-driven game, you can almost ignore the story and just focus on the puzzles if you please. But playing it right after SOMA I couldn't help but enjoy how it almost covered the same type of scenario from another -- perhaps more optimistic -- angle.

[ehnto]

We had a really similar experience, including playing Talos directly afterwards. They both had a really incredible solitude to them, which I think resonated because of the same ideological reasons but in two different contexts like you said. They managed to evoke pretty much the same emotions from me, except for the horror from SOMA.

There was an uncanniness to the Talos robots and the terminal entries which was really creepy to me though, I found them really unsettling at first.