ayase
State Alchemist
[Warning: First link, while comical in nature, is still a potential game spoiler. As is everything under spoiler tags, obviously]
I've been playing SOMA. Simultaneously beautiful and horrifying, just like being alive.
Aside from the fact I got lost in the ocean quite a lot, I had only one issue with what I otherwise thought was a fantastic game. It's an issue I have with games which are a narrative rather than an RPG, but still allow you to make moral choices - Simon, the player character, did not speak for me. The choices I made (as Simon) throughout the game were based on my own understanding and beliefs - Which were clearly not Simon's understanding or beliefs. Which made for a bit of a dismal ending to the game when I was 100% agreeing with Catherine and finding Simon's utter childishness equally infuriating. No, of course your consciousness didn't get transferred from your body into the Ark, Simon 3.0. Did you not understand that from when you yourself were created from a scan of Simon 2.0, and he continued to exist? You dense muffin fluffer.
I exaggerate. That's far too harsh on the game's really quite excellent writing. Much as I might have been occasionally annoyed by Simon's attitude, he and Catherine are obviously there to provide different perspectives on what they consider to be life or consciousness - SOMA really isn't about the destination, it's about the journey which forces the player to confront some pretty heavy ideas potentially far more terrifying than any of the game's admittedly creepy monsters (though is it fair to call them that? Perhaps not). Speaking of the monsters, I am a huge fan of the decision to make the picture break up worse and worse the closer the player gets to them. That is an ingenious way of solving the problem so much horror media has of all suspense being thrown out as soon as you see the thing causing it (because clearly nothing can live up to the expectation of unimaginable, unknowable terrors that for whatever reason still reside somewhere deep inside us all). Much as I still enjoyed Amnesia, Frictional Games' previous outing, as soon as I'd seen the monsters in that game up close and laughed out loud a lot of the magic was gone.
And boy, does it ask those tough questions on that journey. Do you unplug someone who's suffering terribly but clearly wants to live from what is essentially a life support machine? Is a robot with AI more, less, or equally as sentient as a robot possessing a copy of a human consciousness? Does humanity have the right to destroy a new and potentially superior life form? Would a simulation of reality, indistinguishable to those inside it from the real thing, be equal in importance to reality itself? These kinds of questions of the nature of reality and consciousness have fascinated me for a long time - That didn't make them any easier to answer or base decisions on, but I applaud Frictional for asking them. Because with the way VR, AI and our understanding of the human mind is progressing, it might not be long at all before we have to start asking them for real.
I've been playing SOMA. Simultaneously beautiful and horrifying, just like being alive.
Aside from the fact I got lost in the ocean quite a lot, I had only one issue with what I otherwise thought was a fantastic game. It's an issue I have with games which are a narrative rather than an RPG, but still allow you to make moral choices - Simon, the player character, did not speak for me. The choices I made (as Simon) throughout the game were based on my own understanding and beliefs - Which were clearly not Simon's understanding or beliefs. Which made for a bit of a dismal ending to the game when I was 100% agreeing with Catherine and finding Simon's utter childishness equally infuriating. No, of course your consciousness didn't get transferred from your body into the Ark, Simon 3.0. Did you not understand that from when you yourself were created from a scan of Simon 2.0, and he continued to exist? You dense muffin fluffer.
I exaggerate. That's far too harsh on the game's really quite excellent writing. Much as I might have been occasionally annoyed by Simon's attitude, he and Catherine are obviously there to provide different perspectives on what they consider to be life or consciousness - SOMA really isn't about the destination, it's about the journey which forces the player to confront some pretty heavy ideas potentially far more terrifying than any of the game's admittedly creepy monsters (though is it fair to call them that? Perhaps not). Speaking of the monsters, I am a huge fan of the decision to make the picture break up worse and worse the closer the player gets to them. That is an ingenious way of solving the problem so much horror media has of all suspense being thrown out as soon as you see the thing causing it (because clearly nothing can live up to the expectation of unimaginable, unknowable terrors that for whatever reason still reside somewhere deep inside us all). Much as I still enjoyed Amnesia, Frictional Games' previous outing, as soon as I'd seen the monsters in that game up close and laughed out loud a lot of the magic was gone.
And boy, does it ask those tough questions on that journey. Do you unplug someone who's suffering terribly but clearly wants to live from what is essentially a life support machine? Is a robot with AI more, less, or equally as sentient as a robot possessing a copy of a human consciousness? Does humanity have the right to destroy a new and potentially superior life form? Would a simulation of reality, indistinguishable to those inside it from the real thing, be equal in importance to reality itself? These kinds of questions of the nature of reality and consciousness have fascinated me for a long time - That didn't make them any easier to answer or base decisions on, but I applaud Frictional for asking them. Because with the way VR, AI and our understanding of the human mind is progressing, it might not be long at all before we have to start asking them for real.
