Posted on: June 19, 2017

Hanglyman

Games: 444 Reviews: 141

Fun But Shallow and Derivative

Shadowgrounds isn't a bad game, exactly, but it's certainly mediocre. As Tyler, a mechanic on Jupiter's moon Ganymede, you must fight off an alien invasion with an impressive arsenal of upgradable weapons. And that's about all there is to it. The controls are a little awkward, but serviceable, though the weird top-down 3D view constantly makes you wish you could see just a little further into the distance. The graphics are dated, early 2000s stuff, and probably a bit cheap even for 2005, but they do the job and there aren't too many issues, aside from a glitch I had that rendered the water incorrectly (I think there was a fix to this, but the game was over before I bothered to find it). The low budget definitely shows when, for instance, vehicles just slide across the ground, their wheels clearly not spinning. The characters are shallow and given very little development or personality, though Tyler himself has a bit of grumbling charm, and the voice acting isn't very good. The sound and music are fine, but nothing special. Overall, the game shows a lack of ambition or creativity, as evidenced by the many obvious tropes taken from other games and movies- Tyler in his orange jumpsuit fighting an alien invasion is reminiscent of Half-Life's Gordon Freeman, the APC you have to reach looks EXACTLY like the one from Aliens, there are enemies that look like Starcraft's hydralisks, the robot enemies look exactly like ED-209 from Robocop... the list goes on. Probably the game's strongest point is the variety of enemy and weapon types. With 10 weapons, all very different and with three upgrades each, as well as enemies that rush you, turn invisible, shoot at you, poison you, are invulnerable from the front, etc., there's a lot of room for inventiveness and strategy. It's fun to play, no question, it just leaves you wishing all the enjoyable combat mechanics were accompanied by interesting characters and a good plot.

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Posted on: November 11, 2017

brolee71

Verified owner

Games: 162 Reviews: 44

Fun blast, poor story and voice actors.

More fun than the classic Alien Breed or the Alien Breed reboots. Shame about the chronic voice acting and super dumb plot, but even that can't hold down the fun action shooter that this game is.

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Posted on: March 12, 2019

Wottie

Verified owner

Games: 1342 Reviews: 26

Boom, bang, aaargh, yeah!

Set on terraformed Ganymede where something's gone wrong, this game totally scratched my action sci-fi B-movie itch. Graphics ranging from very nice to wow (the final environment), great music to go with them, ending that has a few plot holes but still brings a kind of catharsis, and - last but foremost - great playability. The game is well balanced, there's a reasonable variety of weapons, and there are enough bosses/special monsters to avoid repetitiveness. Near the end, a bit of fatigue comes with some less inspired missions (taking down generators is less cool than taking down aliens), but the final fight and the aforementioned ending make up for it. Cons include horrible voice acting (the voicing feels like done by the devs&family to save costs) and a few design flaws (like as soon as you kill a boss, the game loads a new level, so you can't pick up whatever bonuses were dropped on the ground during the fight). But you know what? It doesn't matter much because this is a great shooter. It may not be perfect, but I loved playing it from start to finish, which doesn't happen to me that often.

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Posted on: June 19, 2019

tpainter

Verified owner

Games: 304 Reviews: 3

Weekend distraction

Game needs a bit more polish. I encountered the following issues on Win7-64: - Running game first time turns off Windows Aero and game hangs. Game process must be ended and rerun for game to load. - Game character sticks on edges/corners of walls, stuff, other characters. Easily results in character death if swamped by enemies. - Has auto-save system incompatible with realities of life - phone calls, power outages, computer crashes, nap time, meals, etc. If you need to stop in the middle of a mission you will be playing the mission over from beginning again. - Last two missions were buggy in that objects you had to interact with would not work again after a re-spawn resulting in starting the mission over. Not cool. - Widescreen resolutions are not offered by default game launcher. Editing Config\Options.txt and setting screen_height and screen_width to desired widescreen resolution seems to work. Game could be finished in a weekend if no issues are encountered. More enjoyable than not. Shooter fix on a budget.

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Posted on: June 11, 2022

LATESTACORONATA

Verified owner

Games: 742 Reviews: 231

Good Gameplay, terrible story (cutscene)

Shadowgrounds is one of those games that I played because I had nothing to play otherwise, and it actually surprised me by having decent shooter mechanics and solid gameplay (a little too repetitive, but in this peculiar case, we can give it a pass). Gameplay wise, as top-down alien shooter, the game does it job by providing a decent roster of enemies, weapons and level layouts to support the two things. Although is clearly not a masterpiece, it does grown a little on you for its fast pace shooting and constant movement. However, for anything else.... welp, soundtrack is ok (actually, some part are pleasantly well done, while the setting and story... is one of those cases ''it's so bad is so good'' ( I actually laughed a lot by listening to the VAs speaking and trying to '''play'' the roles assigned to them and failing miserably). Strangely enough, this counts especially in the cutscenes, while the PDA and other kind of info found in the game are not that bad in setting up the atmosphere... if the atmosphere was not ruined by everything else. Still, the game, despite not being revolutionary ( won't certainly change your life not playing it), is actually worth a try: it's simplicity of gameplay is the very ''meat&bones'' that this game offers Just shut down your thinking process and kill the space bug ( Damn, just realized that the story is basically a 90's B movie about aliens).

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