Game:

Soma (2015)

Duration: 1:29:40

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12

Download: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=800881783

This mod is a mix of different places, some look good, others not so good. Terrains look like someone's very first attempt at making outdoor areas or a prototype quickly and dirtily put together, then released due to missed deadline. The author should pay attention at well-made outdoor areas in games and try to make something like them.

Despite level of detail being not very high, FPS drops are frequent.

At the beginning we appear in the environment that barely resembles a ship interior. First person cutscenes are a nice idea.

Then we find ourselves in unnatural outdoor area. Low cliffs are made by pulling parts of terrain up and applying rock texture to it instead of using proper static meshes. At the paths, dense grass cuts off instantly while its amount should slowly get reduced as it gets closer to the path. Instead of distant landscapes, there's an overly bright fog. One good thing the author did is adding detail texture to terrain.

There are some interesting puzzles about finding an item or using things you can pick up to climb and get into otherwise unreachable areas.

Contrasting the unnatural terrains, indoor areas look decent, sometimes even good, with interesting mixes of different assets (1:02:53, 1:12:34). A story slowly builds the tension for the fight that's going to end the mod, well-picked music aids it in this undertaking.

27:50 - background sound prevents from hearing what the recording says.

1:08:08 - color correction makes this place look fresh despite using walls from early version of Soma which were seen in other mods many times before.

Later it starts to shine with nice original ideas. There's a lantern that our hero holds in his hand. There's a monster that we need to lure into a trap. There's a robot we need to kill with melee weapon. They are great, creative usages of Soma's mechanics which form the experience different from original game.

This time, enemies won't be annoyances that slow you down, very quickly you will remove them from your path. Each encounter ends with a cathartic moment when the enemy is history and will not bother you again.

The fight at the end, for example, forms original experience by simply giving the player ability to hit the robot. Player's movement physics and robot's behavior remain the same, but with this ability the context and feel of situation are completely new. You have to use your knowledge of them in a new way, to get close to robot, hit it and escape before it hits back.

Unfortunately, due to the boss having a lot of health, the encounter becomes tedious. It could have been a lot more interesting if it had different stages. After few hits, the floor collapses and you appear in a different room, after few more the robot loses its outer shell, changing its form and requiring different approach to fighting it - few different events of such nature could break the tedium and make it a lot more exciting.

Despite its flaws, the mod offers original ideas worth checking out. Hopefully the community will notice them or the author gets more experienced for the next creation and we will see these ideas in better shape in the future projects.

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