Soma – and in a dream and in reality. Review 2021

I propose to recall the best, from my point of view, the project of the Swedish studio Frictional Games – Soma. The game is far from new, but worthy of attention. And today, when our world is completely digitized. Neuro networks progress with might and main and displace a person from the digital space. The issues raising in the game are relevant today. This game clearly demonstrates an example of how it could, affect humanity. With a slight fantastic speculation, in the spirit of old science fiction writers.

Officially, consciousness is the highest form of display of objective, stable properties of the world. Actually, the term “co-knowledge” itself is interpreted as “joint knowledge”. What you know about yourself accumulates by acquiring life experience, and manifests itself only when interacting with the outside world. Thanks to consciousness, we feel like part of the world. We perceive the outside world, create and remember the images familiar to us, experience emotions and are able to experience experiences. But that if your consciousness is not at all? What if everything you knew about yourself is not your knowledge, not your experience. Are you able to learn this, and to maintain at the same time, human properties? To your attention the science fiction horror Soma.

This is a game from Swedish developers Frictional Games. Known for games such as Amnesia and Penubra. The game was developed for almost five years. Initially, the developers had plans to move away from the concept of their previous games as far as possible. But in fact, throughout history, the feeling does not leave that this is amnesia, only in a fantastic style resembling the works of Isaac Azimov.

You are Simon Jareth, a friendly, cheerful guy from Toronto, who finds himself in a difficult life situation. On the eve of Simon with his girlfriend Ashley, gets into a car accident. He survives, she is not. Now, he has to fight, with deadly severe damage to the brain and internal bleeding. The prospect is not particularly inspiring, as doctors predict him an imminent death. And Simon agrees to experimental brain scan in the laboratory. You wake up at home in Toronto, your doctor is associated with you and reminds that today the same scan should occur according to the plans, and therefore you need to pre -take the medicine and go to the medical institution.

There is a typical studio apartment around, and outside the window is the usual world. Having dealt with your affairs, you go out of the door. You are Simon Jareth. Around the subway car. People are engaged in their business, everyone has their own worries. A typical scene of everyday life and indifference to established norms. Everything goes on as usual. A friend calls you, ask a couple of questions about work. This scenario, as if emphasizes the carelessness and indifference of people living in the world, where everything goes in the usual pace. But what will happen if you shake, the usual foundations for us?

You are Simon Jareth. You arrive https://mindepositcasino.co.uk/mega-moolah-slot/ at the address. It turns out to be deserted here. To get to the laboratory, you must somehow go closed doors. The riddle is simple. You just need to look around and find the code from the door. The doors are open, you are inside. You are met by a doctor and conducts a brief briefing before scanning. The time has come, sits in a special chair, and conduct a scan procedure.

During scanning, something went wrong, and you lose consciousness. Awing to you find yourself, not where it was assumed. There is a complete change. And the first time, you are covered by panic. You are Simon Jareth or not?

The environment familiar to the eye is completely transformed. Roofing felts – this is a laboratory, felts of a scientific station, it is not clear. But where are the people? Where are the staff? Why does everything look abandoned here? A suspicious slurry flows from the ceiling. And behind the metal doors, a heart -rending cry of a person dying for a violent death is heard. Nobody explains this to you, but offers to figure it out on its own. There are no tasks in the game. No inventory. And at first, no one tells you what to do. And besides the intriguing plot tie, there is not a single motive to continue to move on.

Here the game accepts the usual pace of the story for Frictional Games. Only a Gothic mansion was replaced by a research complex located at the bottom of the ocean. This is a well -made scriptwriter decision. As the endless spaces of the underwater abyss are able to scare no worse than gloomy corridors of an abandoned station. It also fits sensibly into the plot, and is logically explained by the impossibility of life on the surface, after the disaster that happened there. According to scientists’ research data, 12% of people may have uncontrolled panic attacks, only from one type of immense underwater abyss. The underwater world turned out well. The developers competently conveyed the entire atmosphere of the serenity of the underwater kingdom, where the player will constantly feel like a stranger. Also, in this way they deftly hid the chamber of some locations. If everything is extremely simple with the laboratory corridors, and it is intuitively clear why you will not be able to go beyond the scope of metal walls, then everything works differently in the open space. Therefore, the bottom of the ocean, from my point of view, is a good choice.

As we study the underwater station, we will constantly face puzzles. Not all of which will be obvious. In a pair of places, there are riddles for puzzles. However, most of them are logically explained. The game loves to abuse Pixelhanting. You often have to poke your nose, in various objects, in order to understand what is required of you. But it is also impossible to call the puzzles especially complicated. In general, like the vast majority of project horror, soma consists: from walking, hide and seek from monsters, solving puzzles, and reading notes through which the plot details are submitted. Fortunately, the developers diluted all the reading of audio diaries. Setting came to the rescue. Since, the game has completely absent scenes, developing the plot, not reinforcing risks risk losing the essence of everything that is happening. And feel the depth of thought that the scriptwriters tried to tell us. And those who, on the contrary, will not miss a single note, but with interest they will read everything, will be able to predict the end of the game. And although, the plot here is able to surprise, this does not exclude the fact that this game still remains a walking simulator. Since, it is the process of moving your body in space that is 70% gameplay.

Of course there were no unexpected turns. At first, robots amaze. Not with its design, but behavior. It’s funny to watch how an electron-mechanical loader convinces you that he is a real person, and in general he is wounded, and he needs help. What looks very illogical, although his speech sounds quite convincing. Information shedding light on these circumstances is just hidden in text notes on the computer, sometimes in audio records. In other things, this is not the only copy that can surprise you with a dialogue. And not all of them will be robots.

What will the game scare? I answer – in the main atmosphere. The whole game is a series of awesome mise -en -scenes, embellished with a qualitative emboss. The game has a threat in the form of monsters, but they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. And episodes with them are held according to the classics. You are hiding, they are looking for. But the approach to them is different. One is oriented by ear, you can’t look at the other. And t.D. It is difficult to die from them if you certainly have not gathered to consider them point -blank. In general, at the beginning of the game, we will be offered a choice of 2 levels of complexity: ordinary and simplified. I don’t know how things are at a simplified level of complexity, but on the usual one, the monster does not kill you the first time, when it is overtaken, but from the whims you will be sent to the nearest “check”. You will be knocking out, and after a while you get up and continue your way, though now you will limp. Local analogue of first -aid kits will help to improve health. He looks crypt.

The game will often put pressure on morality. Are you ready to interrupt your life, for the sake of achieving your goal? Or will it be humane, to leave a person alive knowing that when he wakes up, he will have to be alone with local horrors, without any hint of salvation. Maybe it will be humane to kill him? Or, can you let a person die quickly? Realizing that if you do not, he will die anyway, only in agony. What is humane? But the pleasant awareness that the game still has a choice is leaning the understanding that the consequences, you will not be found. And a concrete answer, whether I acted correctly to the question, they will not give you, even at the end of the game. Unfortunately, the ending in the game is one. You will not be allowed to influence the denouement of history.

I would like to separately mention the Russifier from Games Voice. The Russifier includes not only the dubbing of the characters, but also the adapted textures, under the Russian language. In the voice acting according to the assurances of the author, more than forty people were accepted, so you will not hear repeated voices. This does not affect the assessment of the game, but I strongly recommend. Personally, I am always pleased to hear voices in my native language.

As a result, we have a solid classical game of a gunner, with the elements of the horror. Good story in the spirit of old science fiction writers. Which, one way or another, will not leave you indifferent. The depth of philosophical thought, which depends only on your immersion in the game. What do you experience at the end of history, the case is purely individual. I can only advise you, carefully read notes, and listen to audio diaries. Those who do not like to read in games, and did not listen carefully, or will not understand anything, or will be shocked by the ending of the game. In any case, lovers of such a genre, I highly recommend the game. If you do not like meditative immersion in the plot, you get bored here.