Old School & cool...a great SCI-FI shooter.
Frozenbyte (a Finnish company)produced back in 2005 their first game: Shadowgrounds.Cool game:it involved killing aliens,exactly like in Doom series,but in that time it was old-school (reminds me of Crusader-No Regret...ah,the good ol' days!).
Now,in 2007,it took me by surprise that they released a standalone expansion,called Shadowgrounds Survivor.
Ganymede,year 2096.The satellite is attaked by aliens.They must be destroyed.So you alternativelly take command of three soldiers:a marine (equipped with a pistol,a pulse rifle & a rocket launcer),a guy with a shotgun,flamethrower & minigun & a sniper,having a pistol,a railgun & a plasma rifle.Now,each character gains experience from killing aliens & does level-ups.From that you gain Special Upgrades points:more health,better grenades,a GPS system,etc.Some dead aliens drop ammo,others drop upgrade parts.You can purchase & install three unique upgrades for each weapon (accuracy,better ammo,bigger magazine slots & some special abilities...Level cap is 10.At the end the three characters will meet in New Atlantis to defeat the final aliens...that's where you get to choose your character & even drive a mech robot & control some turrets. Cool.It's not much,the game is short (5-6 hours),but it's very cool to blast the monsters to pieces.
The camera is a 3rd person top-down view,but it's really friendly & easy to control.The graphic textures are not amazing,but well designed ,there are AGEIA PhisX,so a lot of things are destroyable.What I've seen in this game & no other does better is the shadows.With a flashlight,in a dark corrdor,you can get scared by a little spider with a HUGE shadow projected on the wall.It's great,atmospheric & creepy too.The sound is good,the effects are well realised,the music is sometimes bizzaare & creepy,& at least the marine's voice acting sounds convincing.
I have to tell you about this:you also get coop play with a friend or survival (whoever survives more than the other wins).
In conclusion,this is much better than any Doom,play it,& you will most certainly like it!