Sonar Shock

85%
Game Brain Score Based on 251 reviews
  • gameplay
  • graphics
  • story
Sonar Shock Game Cover
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"Sonar Shock" is a first-person dungeon-crawler with RPG elements, where you explore a Soviet super submarine filled with supernatural infestations. Customize your character and navigate through the submarine's four floors, collecting powerful weapons and uncovering its dark secrets. Interact with the crew, solve side-quests, and discover hidden treasures, all while facing your fears in this survival horror.

  • PC
  • Windows
  • Linux
Genres & TagsPlay Modes

Reviews

85%
Audience ScoreBased on 251 reviews
gameplay31 positive mentions
optimization7 negative mentions
  • The game successfully captures the atmosphere and tension reminiscent of classic System Shock games, particularly with its Soviet-era submarine setting.
  • The manual weapon mechanics and sanity effects add a unique layer of tension and immersion to the gameplay, making combat feel frantic and engaging.
  • The exploration and resource management aspects are rewarding, with a satisfying loop of scrounging for supplies and managing limited saves.
  • The control scheme is clunky, lacking basic features like strafing and mouse look, which can frustrate players accustomed to modern FPS mechanics.
  • Performance issues, including severe frame drops and bugs that can lead to getting stuck in the environment, detract from the overall experience.
  • The save system, which relies on consumable save disks, can lead to significant frustration, especially when players lose progress due to unexpected deaths.
  • gameplay102 mentions

    The gameplay of Sonar Shock is a blend of immersive sim and horror elements, heavily inspired by the original System Shock, featuring a unique sanity mechanic that affects player experience. While the game offers satisfying resource scrounging, tense combat, and multiple paths for exploration, it suffers from clunky controls, a retro design, and a lack of quality-of-life features that may frustrate some players. Overall, it provides a nostalgic yet challenging experience for fans of the genre, particularly those who appreciate its old-school mechanics and atmosphere.

    • “The general gameplay loop of scrounging for supplies is very satisfying.”
    • “Sonar Shock is a great entry in the already rare immersive sim-horror genre, offering a unique setting and gameplay.”
    • “There are multiple paths to reach or even outright skip your previous destinations, various ways to use the environment to your advantage, and character builds that define gameplay.”
    • “If you die and haven’t saved in a while, it’s back as far as you were, as I learned the hard way getting confident and then dying, losing 90 minutes of gameplay in the process.”
    • “This game has a lot of potential, but the aggressively retro design (can't look up or down, intrusive UI, saves require consumables, obfuscated mechanics, etc.) is too frustrating for me to engage with beyond the first thirty minutes.”
    • “If you are expecting a modern, refined gameplay experience... then this game does the exact opposite, which is either the main charm or downside depending on what kind of games you like.”
  • graphics66 mentions

    The graphics of the game evoke a retro aesthetic that some players find charming, despite being described as low-budget and occasionally cartoonish. The unique art style effectively complements the game's atmosphere, enhancing the claustrophobic and eerie experience within its Soviet submarine setting. While the visuals may not impress at first glance, they contribute significantly to the overall tension and immersion, making for a distinctive indie horror experience.

    • “Each level of the submarine provides a different aesthetic to breathe in, starting with claustrophobic corridors and spreading into sprawling forested areas to a man-made frozen tundra.”
    • “Oh, and once you actually get into the game, you’ll realize that the visuals are much more charming than they might look at first glance.”
    • “And the aesthetic... eldritch horror on a USSR sub, amazing.”
    • “When you take a casual glance at the game, you’ll probably only notice the low-budget graphics, the somewhat confusing UI, and the Lego minifigure-looking NPCs.”
    • “Single digits despite graphics (including pathfinding) at a minimum.”
    • “I love retro-style graphics, but sometimes these are almost beyond retro and feel too much like Minecraft.”
  • story59 mentions

    The story of Sonar Shock is intriguing and features a mix of humor and genuine scares, though it is often compared to System Shock 2 and BioShock, leading some to view it as derivative. While the writing may not be exceptional, it offers engaging side quests and environmental storytelling that enhance the immersive experience, despite occasional confusion in plot progression and a lack of quest tracking. Overall, players appreciate the blend of survival horror elements with a lighthearted narrative, making it a recommended choice for fans of the genre.

    • “It has an intriguing story, manages to have humorous writing without becoming bogged down in 'yes comrade' memes, is occasionally genuinely scary, and offers you interesting challenges and choices throughout.”
    • “The overall plot is intriguing, and the environment is nicely designed.”
    • “There's a main plot to follow obviously but there's a pretty large amount of side activities that range from finding someone's vodka stash which you can use to heal or trade like a currency, tracking down a serial killer by deciphering codes (bring a notebook in real life), to finding experimental weaponry.”
    • “The story is also yet another carbon copy of System Shock 2/Bioshock, so not much necessarily going on.”
    • “Sonar Shock doesn’t provide a backlog of conversations and offers very minute updates to quests, so if you leave something behind for a while, be ready to backtrack and guess how to resume that area.”
    • “All movement is constrained to tank controls (no leaning, no jumping, and not even a strafe button which the pre-EE version of SS1 had), hotkeys barely exist, so something as simple as wanting to pause the game will need to be done with the UI, and overall, there's a severe lack of connective tissue between the four levels the game has.”
  • atmosphere56 mentions

    The atmosphere of the game is widely praised for its richness and immersive qualities, effectively blending horror elements with a unique setting that evokes a strong sense of unease. Players appreciate the game's ability to maintain tension through its art style, sound design, and varied environments, while also noting occasional tonal shifts that may feel disjointed. Overall, the atmosphere is described as thick, engaging, and integral to the gameplay experience, making it a standout feature for fans of survival horror and immersive sims.

    • “The atmosphere is thick and very unpleasant (in the best possible way.) Moment-to-moment gameplay is tense and exciting.”
    • “The atmosphere is just incredible; I was nervous and on the edge of my seat pretty much for the whole game.”
    • “Atmosphere is crazy, humorous but also oppressive, yet always believable and immersive - and the setting includes a lot of varied locales ranging from what you'd expect to find on a submarine, to parks, and ancient libraries and temples, and it all fits together.”
    • “Sometimes it has a creepy and oppressive atmosphere, and other times you're solving mysteries with actual Sherlock Holmes. I'm not saying this type of tone could never work together; it's just that the tonal changes were kind of off for me.”
    • “The atmosphere is thick as pudding from the get-go.”
    • “You'll be navigating environments that generally put you at unease with a mix of strong art style, sound design, and general atmosphere.”
  • optimization46 mentions

    The game suffers from significant optimization issues, particularly related to enemy pathfinding, which can cause severe frame rate drops, especially when multiple enemies are present. Players have reported performance dips to single digits even on capable hardware, alongside bugs such as getting stuck on geometry and dialogue navigation problems. While some temporary relief can be found by restarting the game, many reviewers recommend waiting for patches to improve the overall experience.

    • “The game is good, but the performance is terrible; it is in desperate need of better optimization.”
    • “If they fix the performance issues, I'll say it's an easy recommendation.”
    • “The game is good, the performance is terrible, the game is in desperate need of better optimization.”
    • “There really is a good game under the hood, but the problem is it's seriously marred by bugs and inexplicably bad performance issues.”
    • “Optimization is definitely not quite there, and I would warn anyone who wants to play this on Steam Deck against doing so.”
  • humor21 mentions

    The game's humor is a blend of clever meta-humor, satirical writing, and charming tongue-in-cheek moments that enhance its adventurous and horror elements. While some players found the humor engaging and a refreshing contrast to serious themes, others noted that it could occasionally lead to confusion, particularly with typos and misleading UI information. Overall, the humor adds a unique layer to the gameplay experience, making it both entertaining and immersive.

    • “The game just oozes charm and is equal parts hilarious tongue-in-cheek adventure and survival horror.”
    • “There's also a good dose of satirical humor in it, which suits this world - and the mood - very well.”
    • “The game will attack you with surprises and a lot of very clever meta-humor, which honestly caught me off guard a time or two, so be prepared!”
  • stability9 mentions

    Overall, the game's stability is described as somewhat inconsistent, with frequent bugs affecting weapon usage, dialogue systems, and user interface elements. While players enjoy the core mechanics, they often encounter glitches, particularly when sanity levels drop, leading to unpredictable side effects. Despite these issues, many users still find the experience enjoyable.

    • “The dialogue system is quite primitive and sometimes buggy.”
    • “It's buggy, a bit buggy.”
    • “The lower your sanity drops, side effects like hallucinations, UI glitches, and enemies will begin to appear; it's always a gamble when using them if you're not prepared for the consequences.”
  • replayability8 mentions

    The game offers high replayability, largely due to its skill system and build variety, which encourages players to experiment with different character setups. While the dungeon crawler-style camera may be a drawback for some, the relatively short length of the game enhances its replay value, making it enjoyable to revisit.

    • “If you can deal with a D-key dungeon crawler style camera turning, it's a pretty enjoyable game with decent replay value through its skill system.”
    • “Probably has plenty of replayability due to build variety; I'll definitely come back to it at some point.”
    • “It's essentially a stripped down version of SS2 (including weapon stat requirements), but this works in favor due to how relatively short the game is, so the actual replay value potential can be seen pretty easily.”
  • grinding4 mentions

    Players find the grinding aspect of the game tedious due to frustrating movement and mouselook mechanics, which detract from the enjoyment of exploration and make simple tasks, like entering doorways, feel unnecessarily complicated.

    • “The aforementioned issues with movement and mouselook unfortunately turn this from fun to tedious more often than not.”
    • “This can make even entering a normal doorway unnecessarily fiddly and makes exploration quite tedious.”
    • “The aforementioned issues with movement and mouselook unfortunately turn this from fun to tedious more often than not.”
  • music4 mentions

    The music in Sonar Shock is minimal, allowing the eerie ambiance of the environment to create a tense atmosphere. However, the hacking mini-game features a catchy tune that stands out as a highlight.

    • “The hacking mini-game song is a bop, 'bonk!'”
    • “Sonar Shock features very little music and lets the derelict ambiance of the multi-layered areas bleed into your ears, providing a seriously tense environment around every turn.”
  • emotional2 mentions

    The emotional aspect of the game initially feels disorienting and unconvincing, but over time, it gradually resonates with players, ultimately earning a cherished place in their hearts.

    • “At first, it didn't convince me and even made me feel a bit dizzy, but little by little it has won a place in my heart.”
Positive mentions (%)Positive
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Negative mentions (%)Negative

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