Hey everybody, my name is Dave Jackson, and this is Baby Got Backlog, a video games podcast where I will bring in guests to talk about games that I’ve recently played. My guest today is a friend of the show and structure gel enthusiast, Ryan Delaney Today we’ll be talking about SOMA, a horror (walking sim) developed and published by Frictional Games in 2015. But before that, other than SOMA, what have you been playing lately? Ok, let’s get into SOMA. This game leans heavily on its story, and it’s a story with affecting themes that you do not want to be spoiled on if you plan on playing the game, so we will have a spoiler section at the end for everybody who has played this or does not plan on playing it. Our histories with the game- -Had never heard of this game, probably because I don’t like horror games or movies or whatever. Before playing this, I don’t think I’d played a true horror game other than maybe Bioshock(?) since around 2005. I first heard of the game when I listened to the Watch Out for Fireballs episode about it and the story really stuck with me. I didn’t ever plan on playing it because again i hate being scared, but the story really stuck with me, and then I heard some people talking about how if you play on safe mode, it’s not that scary and there aren’t many/any jump scares. And I had recently finished Prey, which does have the constant threat of low-level jump scares, so I figured I could do SOMA. -played on ps4 via ps now, in 2021 Play time- around 9 hours Basics of how the game works, key mechanics, what makes this game stand out? Gameplay Walking sim with stealth. Your most advanced actions/verbs are to pick up and throw objects. There is no combat, not really puzzles to solve beyond the basic “go turn on the power in this other room” type of thing that so many games set in underwater or outer space facilities make you do. Taking a page out of walking sims, lots of going around, reading computer logs, listening to audio logs, reading notes, etc. going through living quarters Monsters/boss fights First of all, great body horror designs You cannot fight back at all, in any encounter. All you can do is hide, throw stuff to distract them, or run. Helpful to remember that you are faster than any of the enemies if you’re running. Simon is very fragile so these should be tense, right Ryan? You can take a few hits before you die, and your health doesn’t regenerate, so you’ll need to restore your health by, ahem, what can only be described as fisting an underwater alien anus. I was on safe mode but I still made a point to do this. There is a saving grace, which is Safe Mode, which makes it so the monsters can’t hurt you. This is how I played the game, to cut down on fear factor. I could admire the monster designs without worrying about them being dangerous. Ryan did you play on safe mode or regular? And how did you deal with the monsters? Story (briefly because it is basically all spoilers) You play as Simon Jarrett, a man who as a result of a traumatic brian injury in a car accident, goes in for an experimental brain scan with the hopes of using the scan to devise a treatment for his injury. Good line at the beginning “Dr Munchi? Uh, Mr. Munchi, for now” so that should give you confidence. Simon wakes up in the underwater research facility PATHOS-II (nice name for your research station, huh), which mainly used to launch satellites using an underwater electromagnetic rail gun. Simon must figure out why he is there and what to do now, with the help of a woman over a radio named Catherine. Story deals with the themes of identity, consciousness, AI, what it means to be human Without spoilers, since this is basically a walking sim, it’s gotta have a good story to be worth your time- did you find this to be a good story? How is this scary? - Ryan did you find it scary? My experience- I got into the station (like 10 minutes into the game), knew I needed to go into a room, but heard something really scary, lights were flickering, I got so scared I closed the game and uninstalled it. But I wanted to play it, so I watched a Let’s Play of the first few hours of the game and realized that there weren’t any jump scares the whole time. I was fine after that. There were some tense moments but overall I was fine. Psychological horror. Only a few jump scares, 2 that I can remember and they weren’t really bad- will discuss in spoiler section Sound design- monster sounds, creaking, dripping water Darkness (you’re deep underwater) Limited defensive tools, no offensive tools (like every other walking sim type game) Story beats, characters and predicaments You hear audio logs of things that happened to NPCs right before they died Hearing about stories of parts of that station and then finding out that that’s your next destination Final thoughts, Do we recommend? At what price point? As someone who still hates the feeling of being scared and does not seek it out, SOMA was tense and terrifying but not in an in-your-face way. It’s more scary when you start to think about what the story implies, and what you’re doing as you go through the game. If you pay attention to what’s happening throughout the game and let it marinate, I think what’s happening in the game will stick with you much longer than any jump scare could do. If you have the slightest tolerance for horror atmosphere, even if you’re averse to jump scares like me, I think this game and this story will be extremely affecting. Some may not like how simple the moment to moment gameplay is, but theres so much atmosphere and environmental storytelling to take in. This game has basically sparked a love for games that fuck me up emotionally. Housekeeping - Thank you for listening! If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your platform of choice, leave us a rating and review if your platform allows it, and spread the good word! I also do a podcast called A Top 3 Podcast where each week we pick a topic, pick our top 3s in that topic, and discuss. It’s a good time, so check that out if you want to hear us talk about other subjects. SPOILER WALL Story- We are going to talk about the story mostly. We will go in a semi-chronological order, but will discuss themes and plot lines as they come up, rather than going strictly beat by beat through the story. , and since I played the game on safe mode, I don’t really have much to say about the enemy encounters. Ryan feel free to chime in. Your first big clue as to what’s going on is when you’re going through series of rooms and you find a robot that thinks it’s human. Soon after that you find a dead body with the name tag of the robot you just talked to. Ryan there’s a choice to look around (put yourself in danger) to find an alternate power source, or to flip the switch and electrocute that robot dude forever, basically. What did you do? A few hours into the game, you find out that -catherine is not a human, rather she is a robot, which is a big reveal as she is kind of like Simon’s only life line to that point. It is the year 2104, when Simon had done the brain scan in 2015. Simon isn’t human either anymore- he is a cortex chip stuck in the corpse of one of the dead crew members. Actually you can see that simon himself isn’t human if you pay attention to a mirror you find early in the game (glowing red eyes gives it away), but I didn’t notice that. Ryan? “No offense but it’s weird to have a robot talking to me” “You’re one to talk” She explains that she had her consciousness transferred and she was working on a project called the Ark, which is like putting a copy of everyone on the base’s consciousness into a simulation. This becomes one of the key parts of the game. Mission to find the ARK. You then learn what happened on the surface- a comet decimated life on earth one year before, leaving the inhabitants of pathos-II, and the crew of one submarine, as the only life on earth. One level is to explore this submarine. a good audio log from the submarine where someone asks about what it’s like on the surface and the captain describes absolute devastation- no hope. (the crew of a submarine is a very good story choice for maximum dread) So this informs what happened down in Pathos-II as well. the crew are the literal last humans on earth, stuck miles deep in the ocean forever, dealing with the psychological problems that would understandably arise from that The ARK began as a pet project but suddenly turned into a last-ditch effort to preserve humanity suicide cult built around the concept of the coin flip, which Simon believes. That when a clone is made, or a consciousness is copied, it’s a 50/50 chance that the “real” you will go into the new body. They think if they kill themself right after the brain scan, they can guarantee that their “real” consciousness will go into the ARK. When the comet struck, the WAU (station’s AI)’s main directive changed to “preserve human life at all costs” which leads to all sorts of body horror using this substance that can repair anything, called structure gel, and pasting human consciousness into robots, like the robot you probably electrocuted earlier, or the one you have to unplug because it was siphoning power from the station to “stay alive” or the woman with artificial lungs grown out of structure gel. That’s why they think they’re human, their brain scans were pasted into whatever was nearby that could accommodate a consciousness. and the WAU, in an attempt to rebuild, pulled simon’s brain scan from 2015 into the dead body of another crew member. Simon is a ‘legacy’ scan and has probably been used hundreds of times. “Mr. Munchi” did become “Dr. Munchi” and went on to be the leader in the field, so that’s nice, huh. The mission becomes to finish work on the ARK and launch it. You have to solve problems to get there, again, as with any game set in an underwater facility, etc. A few notable ones: In order to get a password to access a deep sea submersible, you need to pull up a simulation of the crew member who knew the password. He is understandably freaked out when he wakes up in this artificial environment, so you have to trick him by changing the background and imitating his girlfriend’s voice. You have to keep pulling the plug on him several times, “killing him” in order to get the password He discovers he’s “living” in a simulation each time, which freaks him out. Pull the plug, he freaks out, repeat. Feels bad. ANd a reminder that this has probably happened to Simon’s scan hundreds of times. Our experiences Simon’s current body can’t withstand the pressure it takes to go to one of the deep sea sites, so you need a new body. Copy paste vs cut paste again, Catherine kind of leads him along and tells him what he wants to hear. Ryan is Simon an idiot for his reaction to this and other parts later? Looking back at your own body, even in a game, is pretty affecting. You have the choice to kill your body or leave it alone- Ryan? Anglerfish jump scare as you’re going through the abyss. Eventually you find the ARK, it’s being protected by an actual living person who has been kept alive by a life support machine. It’s a very emotional conversation, and she asks you to pull the plug, but to stay with her until she goes. Powerful stuff. You have the choice. You had heard others say that the WAU won’t let people die (woman with lungs on the outside), so I was really scared that this woman would awake as a monster, but luckily she passes quietly. But I booked it out of that room. You send the ARK on its way to the space gun station, and along the way you are sidetracked and prompted by a Pathos 2 crew member Johan Ross, who was the WAU overseer, to kill the WAU, by fisting the ultimate undersea anus- a choice. The WAU is performing awful body horror stuff to keep these consciousnesses going. But the WAU is almost certainly humanity’s best chance to survive long-term. (There’s no way for the brain scans to get off of the ARK unless aliens find it) Ryan? No matter what you choose, Ross decides to kill you but is eaten by a sea monster One last moment before loading the ARK into the space gun- you find Catherine’s body. As you remember from earlier in the game, Catherine wasn’t sure if the ARK was completed, as her brain scan was copied into this robot earlier. You see that she was killed by her crew mates during an argument over whether to launch it into space or not. Ending You set up the copy procedure to send simon and catherine’s scans into the ARK. It’s really down to the wire, but it finishes right as the ARK is launching. Simon obviously mistakenly thought that he would be cut and pasted into the ARK, but he and catherine watch as the ARK is launched into space, and realizes that this version of him is still stuck in PATHOS-II without any real hope of escaping. He accuses catherine of lying to him about the copy/paste or as they call it “the coin flip” when there was never a coin flip, and while yelling at each other, catherine’s device shorts out, basically killing her. He is alone at the bottom of the ocean. After credits, you get a scene of simon waking up in the ark and meeting catherine for a nice “in person” meeting. But then the camera pans out at the lonely ark satellite orbiting a fireball of an earth. END. Ryan what did you think of the ending? There is a bit of a fan debate over whether the game should have ended at the credits, and you don’t see the ARK out in space. Up until that point you aren’t sure if it was totally successful, just that it had been shot out of the ocean. Which brings us once again to this game’s most common debate- is Simon an idiot?