SOMA had incredibly frustrating level design.

The monsters typically roamed on a very simple path (like, 2 point, 4 at the most) and teleported if they got stuck.

The visuals, atmosphere, story and themes were amazing.

But discussing it at the office I ended up drawing the levels on a whiteboard and redesigning them :P 

SOMA is a really annoying title because everytime I read it I assume it's an acronym for something (like DOTA) and spend time trying to work out what the fuck game you're talking about before remembering, oh, that's just what it's called.

Stupid crap title. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma 

I've enjoyed two movies on this, Her and Ex-Machina.

Even more so, I've enjoyed three games on this subject. What they all had in common was a background sense of melancholy but these three each had a unique flavour. Also, the player is required to mine information if they want the most complete story, otherwise big holes can be left behind:

SOMA - Good horror, decent voice acting but the lead character was not likable. They did a nice job of filling out the story. Addresses the concept of transference vs copying. Soundtrack suits the game tension but is not contemplative.

The Talos Principle - This one is my favorite in dealing with the subject. Brilliant voice acting; but then again, there's only two voices - one the God voice, the other in audio logs. This Gordon Freeman approach actually makes the lead character feel more like you, the player, especially since you can make some dialog tree choices that are personal. In this game, there is no transference; rather consciousness is imbued to machines artificially. Getting the most story requires opening up bonus areas and searching and exploring every computer terminal you can find. Not doing so will leave out some very important explanations. The music is contemplative and the game just has this rich vibe of wonder and wistfullness that makes it great. The DLC, Road to Gehenna, is also worth playing for its original take on social interactions between these AIs.

Cradle - I really liked the art style of this game and how it feels like interactive speculative fiction. Mining for story items takes more effort then the other two games and if it wasn't for seeing some Steam achievements, there's a pile of documents scattered on the grounds that would go unread and they are worth reading. It deals with transference. The soundtrack is contemplative. The voice acting is okay but the lead character is not that likable.

Not quite congruent to these three but I have to mention it is The Swapper which features intelligent rocks. The Swapper is also a melancholy story and is rich in atmosphere. 

I've decided that watching "Let's Play" videos is one of the absolute best things YouTube is good for. 15-20 minutes of watching someone else play a game is usually all it takes to know if I'd like it or not. It has saved me money and lot of wasted time. It has also introduced me to games that I otherwise wouldn't have given a second look which actually turned out to be very enjoyable. 

I didn't really notice that. It was pretty rudimentary and was vastly outweighed by the exploration, scenery-gawping, and story-telling. I agree though that the latter aspects are the very good highlights of the game, although I didn't mind the gameplay at all and the tension / scare value was pretty good in places. 

both Metro Redux games on sale on GoG... yay no DRM! 

When I said the game gets insane... it does get insane...
I can barely make it past the first few waves -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSoRbNs9bDk 

The weapons seem really unsatisfying from the video ... weak sounds, weak impacts, etc. Needs some bass. 

Loud booming weapons in games are horrible, I want to hear the rest of the game, not my weapons

/imho 

My point being that the weapons have to sound cool to get me to want to use them.

I never said take over the sound system and drown everything else out. 

Talking about SOMA, and also about sound design: SOMA had bloody great sound design. HTH. 

can somebody explain to me why it uses the "aggroing mobs" concept so evangelically? It makes sense in a game like dark souls, but... from watching let's plays, in xcom2 this totally destroys the immersion and also a lot of the fun -- enemies are basically cannon fodder, because you basically just try to aggro them in a way so you can clear up the situation in the first turn.

Imho this almost makes the game a puzzle game. Reveal puzzle, carefully figure out moves to solve puzzle, repeat. No "world", ai, aliens or anything. 

https://youtu.be/3EaUA_8VHTg?t=1295 

In many cases you won't be able to aggro them at the right time, for instance you weren't able to scout right and your last character will reveal a group, that will then have a full turn to shoot at you.
Also the missions with a turn limit won't aglow you to scout so carefully, you'll often be in situations where you can't wipe out a group in one turn. 

"Reveal puzzle, carefully figure out moves to solve puzzle, repeat."

I mean, yeah, that's the game :) 

http://www.twitch.tv/gogcom will have a release stream for Superhot in 3 hours. It's not officially announced on GOG yet, but they've been hinting about the stream enough to make me almost certain that this will be the game.

You can check from this link when the stream will be in your local time. It's the only release stream on Thursday.

http://j.mp/streaming_schedule

They often have dev guests on release streams, so they could get one (or two) for this stream too.

Superhot is a single-player FPS where time only moves when you do. It looks like it could be good fun. It's being released today on Steam, GOG and maybe a couple of other places.

http://www.superhotgame.com 

Yeah, I want to grab it and I wishlisted it on Steam but there's no price listed yet ... wtf? And why can't I buy it now and unlock it in 4 hours? Fuck everything ... 

From their site:

"NO PREORDERS"

Fuck off. 

The release stream is postponed until tomorrow. Probably. It's not happening today at least.

Sorry for the false alarm. 

Permanent bullet time and no textures?? 

Sort of. Times doesn't move unless you do. It's interesting ... 

I thought that hype was last year already? Wasn't it released? 

Total Biscuit video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJVrquYvGRA

It was supposed to be released today. There's still some today left in Poland, so I dunno if it's delayed or not. 

There was a Quake version released for April's Fools by the way.