L.G.C. |Reviews| — SOMA – Linux Game Cast

Your intrepid heroes unlock FERPS, spank Cthulhu, and get torn apart. SOMA faces the CHAIRQUISITION!

Game: SOMA
Webzone: http://store.steampowered.com/app/282140/
Devel: Frictional Games
Ported by: http://knockoutgames.co/
Engine: HPL Engine 3
Price: €27.99 / US$ 29.99 / CDN$ 32.99

Wazzat: 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.

Mandatory US Disclosure: The devs sent us keys.

CHAIRQUISITION:

– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Makes with the working

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Visit /home/NAME/.local/share/frictionalgames/Soma/Main/NAME_11000010589A1F2_user_settings.cfg
set LimitFPS=”false”
Then you can get 120+ FERPS @ 1080 /w everything on 11.

J-

Averages about 45-50 fps with everything on 11 at 4k
Sometimes it struggles to figure out what it’s supposed to be doing and you’ll get frame dips
I’ll tell you what happens when you try to enable__GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS a bit later

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Turn VSync off, FerPS cap out at 30.
Turn it to adaptive or on and set the refresh rate, then you can have your FerPS.
Screenshots? Never heard of them. I wanted to get one when I finished the game but it’s all just black.

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Shiny / Sounds

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HL2 level graphics.
Seriously, even the cables are all _/\_
I would provide screenshots but that MOON feature does not work.
We love Frictional and they have been good to us but this is LGC.
Having a 30/60 FERPS lock on the PC tells me you spent more time optimizing for 3yr old laptop hardware vs actual gaming machines.
The PC version is a backport from the PS4 build.
Like previous titles Frictional really focus on the sound.
That’s what makes up for the less than stellar visuals.

J-

The sound design is fantastic. Really gets you on edge and that’s par for the course for frictional
Voice acting is alright
Was getting serious underruns after a while, so I gave the launch options the ol’ PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=60 and sorted that out
Also tried turning on __GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS=1 and HOLY MOTHER OF SCREEN TEARING BATMAN!
Not to be mistaken with the “glitchy” effect that populates the game
Yeah, the graphics are pretty dated. they get the job done, but it doesn’t get them any style points

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During the very last scene, I’m not sure if the graphical flickering is on purpose or just a fuck up of the Linux version.
It seems to have issues when I force it into a virtual 5.1 surround so I could use my headphones properly.
- Underruns up the wazoo. Disabling and reenabling the headset in pavucontrol while the game is still running stops the underruns.
The textures are definitely low res, the poly count on some of the models is so low you probably have enough digits to count them with.
And the faux-tearing/glitching is enough to trigger my OCD.
That said, the ambient noises and background music were balls to the walls amazing.
The graphics, low quality as they may be, fit the type of game that it is. They’re not perfect but they’re not horrible either.
I’m guessing if they had pushed the graphics up to today’s standards, instead of 22GB the game would have taken up 50.
Level design is amazingly well done and, even at such low quality, it’s incredibly detailed.

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Control

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J-

If you’ve played one amnesia game, you know how play this

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FUN

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Are the robot thingies supposed to be scary?
Last time I checked minor annoyances didn’t check that box.
I almost want to give an extra chair for the area where the FKR is trapped and you can electrocute his arse.
It’s screams were… satisfying.

J-

Despite the game starting in toronto, the subway trains look nothing like TTC ones
Nice touch with the CN Tower in the background
The monster isn’t scary. It kind of reminds me of a street shark. Parkoured my ass over that motherfucker
FUCK THAT FUCKING RADIO CONTROL UI! ALL THE WAY TO SAIGON!
Seriously, if you leave your mouse in one position for too long, it kicks you out and you gotta start again. Grrrrrgh
Some of the surprises are telegraphed pretty hard
Still, creepy atmosphere is what it promises, and it sure as hell delivers on it.
Frictional is pretty good at teasing the monster, but I find it a bit rubbish at actually delivering on it. Oh well.
Ultimately this game fails to capture the true horror…of living in Canada

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Having a game take place at the bottom of the ocean, off the coast of Portugal and in which the protagonist was born on July 16th, is a sure fire way to get me immersed.
- In more ways than one.
Much like Venn, at the start of the game I was like, “this isn’t very scary”. Then came the very first scene which made me feel bad about my actions.
Then came the flavor text explaining what had happened in the place and the “reveal” of what exactly is going on and how the protagonist ties into it.
It definitely doesn’t have that overbearing atmosphere like Amnesia The Dark Descent did but even that can easily be justified by that same reveal.
Seeing the prototype boot up and the “mount -o loop <whatevs>” command put a big ol’ grin on my face.
Frictional’s games always have that “What it means to be human” undertone to them and I feel with SOMA they’ve nailed the moral conundrums that we would face in such a situation.
The only real issue I had with the game itself, outside of the technical kerfuffles, is how much of a Canadian dude-bro douchebag the protagonist is. He’s a fucking idiot!
I suppose it’s good to have a bit of variance on the whole “amnesiac in scary place” trope but, considering how many of typical horror genre tropes the game makes use of, would it have been so bad to have that in as well?
For the most part I could relate to Simon. Then right at the end, I wanted to reach into the game and slap that powersuit he’s in until the gel inside hardened.
I actually felt bad for something I had done in the previous sector because of how much of a dumb fucking idiot he was.
But, the fact that the game managed to make me feel so strongly about him and his fucking idiocy, it’s certainly praiseworthy.

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Final –