I've gotten a lot of hits recently. SOMA blew my mind. It is so good. I actually have the urge to play it again. No game has ever made me think so much about being human. It raises intriguing philosophical questions throughout its story of the mind, humanity, and artificial intelligence. Perhaps my favorite was a religious question. If I could copy my mind, and there existed two (or more) of me, then what happens when any of me ceases to function? If there is a heaven, is there only one spot for me? Or at the moment of awareness, do the copies of me sufficiently diverge to be different people, each with his place? Is living in a simulated environment better or worse or more or less real than eking out an existence with a physical body? A small snippet of why I loved this game and will be thinking about it for a long time to come...

Much of this game is unnerving or disconcerting. The first other character you come across seems to be a machine who thinks he is human. It's unclear at the time exactly what is going on, but you're given the choice to "kill" it or let it "live." It is, by the way, grievously injured and seems to have been crushed by a rock and some other machinery. But it's mentally all there. You can make this choice for several other characters over the course of the game, and make a similar choice in different contexts that feel momentous and weighty indeed. They don't have an effect on the game's outcome or anything, but they sure had an effect on me.

This is the best Frictional game, hands down, and I liked both Amnesia and A Machine for Pigs. SOMA is on another level. Oh, and those creatures scared the hell out of me. AT LEAST 10 times, maybe 15 or 20, I was so anxious that I couldn't even move. I'd just crouch in a corner listening to the creature stalking the nearby rooms hoping that it wouldn't come near me and see me. When I had to run past a creature to get this or that item, the player me would close my eyes and hold forward and shift to sprint because it freaked me out so much knowing that this THING was right behind me about to kill me. And a handful of times I yelled in the apartment as I did so, usually a repetitive string of curse words as I ran for a door and *click click click click* tried to close it behind me before the thing could get to me. The visual and sound effects and the screen tearing really amped up the intensity.

Cannot say enough about this. If you like horror games, if you are in any way interested in thinking about artificial intelligence, philosophizing about humanity, science fiction, and so on, do yourself a favor and pick this up.

I've gotten a lot of hits recently. SOMA blew my mind. It is so good. I actually have the urge to play it again. No game has ever made me think so much about being human. It raises intriguing philosophical questions throughout its story of the mind, humanity, and artificial intelligence. Perhaps my favorite was a religious question. If I could copy my mind, and there existed two (or more) of me, then what happens when any of me ceases to function? If there is a heaven, is there only one spot for me? Or at the moment of awareness, do the copies of me sufficiently diverge to be different people, each with his place? Is living in a simulated environment better or worse or more or less real than eking out an existence with a physical body? A small snippet of why I loved this game and will be thinking about it for a long time to come... Much of this game is unnerving or disconcerting. The first other character you come across seems to be a machine who thinks he is human. It's unclear at the time exactly what is going on, but you're given the choice to "kill" it or let it "live." It is, by the way, grievously injured and seems to have been crushed by a rock and some other machinery. But it's mentally all there. You can make this choice for several other characters over the course of the game, and make a similar choice in different contexts that feel momentous and weighty indeed. They don't have an effect on the game's outcome or anything, but they sure had an effect on me. This is the best Frictional game, hands down, and I liked both Amnesia and A Machine for Pigs. SOMA is on another level. Oh, and those creatures scared the hell out of me. AT LEAST 10 times, maybe 15 or 20, I was so anxious that I couldn't even move. I'd just crouch in a corner listening to the creature stalking the nearby rooms hoping that it wouldn't come near me and see me. When I had to run past a creature to get this or that item, the player me would close my eyes and hold forward and shift to sprint because it freaked me out so much knowing that this THING was right behind me about to kill me. And a handful of times I yelled in the apartment as I did so, usually a repetitive string of curse words as I ran for a door and *click click click click* tried to close it behind me before the thing could get to me. The visual and sound effects and the screen tearing really amped up the intensity. Cannot say enough about this. If you like horror games, if you are in any way interested in thinking about artificial intelligence, philosophizing about humanity, science fiction, and so on, do yourself a favor and pick this up.