Shadowgrounds is a budget action/suspense game that is heavy on the action... but not quite so much on the suspense.
The game revolves around disgruntled mechanic Wesley Tyler on the Jupiter moon of Ganymede. Wesley used to work security on the newly established colony until he asked too many questions about a series of accidents on the colony and found himself repairing consoles on the outskirts of the colony. One night while working on a broken vehicle the power goes out and Wesley is sent in to figure out what’s breaking down. From there the game follows along a fairly standard “invading alien” storyline that is delivered through logbook entries and in engine cut scenes. There isn’t anything all that compelling or original about the story itself, but it really just serves as a backdrop to the action based game play that the developers were trying to deliver.
The story doesn’t really try to take itself too seriously, which is good because it seems as if they were trying to make something completely over the top with this game. Like many other ambitious budget titles like Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project or Nosferatu: Wrath of Malachi, Shadowgrounds fully embraces its concept and just delivers on its premise of action and aliens. Little things like the voice acting and some of the dialog will pull you out of the moment… until you remember that it’s just an action game and you go back to putting a few more holes in alien skulls. Other minor details like finding log entries written by colonists who supposedly had time to write down their screams while being eaten is somewhat comical (Monty Python and the Holy Grail) but again… it is easy to work past these little problems with the narrative.
The action is what this game is really all about, and while the developers aren’t setting out to re-invent the wheel with this title, what they have done is none the less fun. The game uses an isometric perspective to showcase the action which is best controlled with a keyboard and mouse. The controls themselves are simple and fairly responsive. You control the aiming cursor with the mouse and Wesley is always turned to face the direction that you are aiming. In a sense this game handles very much like Robotron were it to be given proper mouse support. Apart from running around and firing Wesley doesn’t have very many other moves aside from a roll that can be performed to quickly get out of the way of rampaging enemies. In playing through this game I haven’t ever once had to use the roll, but I suppose there might be some situations on higher difficulty levels where it might be useful.
Shadowgrounds features nine different weapons to serve your thirst for alien destruction. The weapons range from standard pistols and machine guns to flame throwers and electricity weapons. Each weapon in the game also comes with three upgrade slots that can be unlocked during the game. When you find a weapon each of the slots is empty, but as when you destroy aliens they will occasionally drop upgrade parts. Each upgrade requires a certain number of parts to acquire, with the more useful upgrades being more expensive. A lot of the weapons have fairly useful secondary functions that can be unlocked in this manner aside from the more general upgrades such as damage increases or a larger clip size. Some of the upgrades, especially for the electricity gun, require a lot of markers so be sure to look in as many dark corners as you can to find enemies to blow away.
Shadowgrounds is a very dark game. There will be many areas that will be completely unlit, which is where your flashlight comes in handy. The lighting effects in this game, while not as sophisticated as games like Quake 4 are still very cool and atmospheric. Your flashlight illuminates just enough in the direction that it is pointed to keep you on your toes while running through pitch black offices and mess halls with enemies moving in the darkness. Some really great moments happen when you run too quickly around a corner into a group of enemies and you can just barely make out their running shadows before they scatter into the darkness.
The alien enemies in Shadowgrounds, while cool in their own way, are also not the most original in the world. The developers obviously worked hard to create a fairly diverse bestiary, but it still would have been nicer to see a little bit more variety in the enemy types. What is really interesting about the enemies in the game is the way in which they react to your light source. Some enemies might scatter and run away from your light while others might be attracted. Another enemy type can only be seen in brief glimpses while in the narrow beam of your light. In the later stages when a lot of enemies are thrown at you at one time you have to be able to quickly adapt to the different tactics used by the aliens to survive.
Survival itself in this game likely won’t be much of a problem however. In lieu of a save game system the developers decided to use a more arcade like approach to this game. Every time a mission loads you are given four respawns. Should you be killed at any time in the game you drop unconscious only to wake up in a “safe” area not far from where you fell. You keep all of your current weapons and ammo and can continue, basically, right from where you left off with full health. Should you run out of “lives” so to speak before you complete a mission, you will be required to replay it again from the beginning. The missions themselves can be fairly long in length if you take your time to explore them and find all of the hidden secrets… (read: weapons) if you find this game difficult early on then be prepared to play through some of the levels more than on. Generally speaking, the game shouldn’t be too difficult for more game players with the exception of a few of the boss encounters that are made easier with the advent of the “respawn” system.
The game is about as long as most others in the more expensive “next-gen” tier of gaming. There are a dozen or so levels and it should take the average player about 7-10 hours to play through it. After you’ve completed the game on your own, you may then do so with a friend! The game also includes a multiplayer co-op mode that will allow you to undertake the entire singleplayer game with a friend… on the same computer. The computer set-up that many people have might not be the most conducive to multiplayer gaming, but the experience is still fairly fun and is handled adequately. The only major complaint with this mode is that one person will have to use a gamepad and configuring this game to use one isn’t the most user friendly on the market. Thankfully the developers have a section on the website dedicated to explaining how to configure different gamepads properly for use in co-op play.
For a game from a small developer at a budget price there is a lot to like in Shadowgrounds. There are plenty of problems that players will likely notice with the game that could have been fixed (like wheels on vehicles actually rotating), but the game moves along quickly enough that it’s easy to forget things like that. If you’re the kind of person that likes old school action games than Shadowgrounds might be something you’d be interested in trying out. If you’re still unsure, there is a great two level demo to try out that will likely answer that question for you. You can find Shadowgrounds on retail shelves in North America now and later in the month of May on Steam.