Shadowgrounds & Shadowgrounds Survivor reviewed

Shadowgrounds is a top-down shooter, involving lots of cool light-effects and hordes of aliens. Oh, and bad dialogue.

The Finnish game developing company Frostbyte released Shadowgrounds in 2005 to mild critical acclaim. Apparently, the game has become something of an underground hit, which is beyond me, as the game doesn't include multiplayer. I snagged Shadowgrounds and the "sequel/spin-off" Shadowgrounds Survivor off of Steam for 5€ and decided to write up my experiences.

The story: Man has colonized one of Jupiter's moons, Ganymede. Life's pretty good, and it's going really well. Until an alien invasion. Aliens invade the colony and pretty soon everyone's dead. Spider creatures, aliens from Aliens(tm) and various other buggers from popular FPS's now plague Ganymede. A mechanic, played by You must fight the alien threat in a game with storyline saturated with clichés and awful dialogue, also full of clichés.

The review: Shadowgrounds has very basic game mechanics: move around the surroundings and shoot hordes of aliens. You control your character with the keyboard and you aim with the mouse. Shadowgrounds involves weapon upgrades and quite a number of weapons familiar from most famous FPS games.

Perhaps the most striking thing about Shadowgrounds is the view-angle, which is top down from behind your character. Maybe the biggest element in the game is the protagonists' flashlight's beam and the excellent graphical effect it creates. Some game critics (Pelit -magasine 2005) praised it to be better than those of popular FPS shooter Doom 3, also released around the same time as Shadowgrounds. All of Ganymede is naturally mostly dark, so you need your flashlight a lot. The flashlight is also central in the way that some of the earliest monsters try to steer away from it, but its biggest function is revealing hiding monsters just around that corner you're about to turn.

All in all Shadowgrounds (the first one) is very straight-forward and an element of humour is present. At times Shadowgrounds seemed a bit too comical for me, as missions are simple and the story doesn't really surprise you. You'll be thrown into a situation where you just need to ward off hords of aliens and the situation isn't really explained. You're just put there to have your fun. Suits me.

Shadowgrounds Survivor seems to be Frostbyte's 'thank you' to the community for supporting the largely indie project that the first title was. "Survivor" continues in this vein, but this time the game is somewhat darker and grittier; Ganymede shows its darkside. Dismembered bodies and more elaborate levels entertain you through a storyline with a little more effort, although this isn't literatury history either. Survivor includes 3 playable characters that you take turns to control. Also included is a new gamemode "Survival" that resembles a "skirmish" mode where you get to fight aliens until death. Your aim is to simply score a high high-score. I think here the roots for this kind of game shows itself: Remember Phobia (2) ? In Finland, we had a real boom of these top-down games where you fought hordes of aliens off for as long as you could.

Summary: I'd really love to play this with a friend of mine over multiplayer, which isn't possible sadly. The games include a "hotseat" mode, where players physically next to you can play the game. Bah, lame. Shadowgrounds is very entertaining, though as long as you're not looking for a serious gaming endeavour. At this price (like I said, I payed 5€), this is well worth the money.

I say: Pick this one up!

(c) Chris 2010