Shadowgrounds First Play
Shadowgrounds is both an homage and a throwback. The homage is to classic
science fiction thrillers such as Aliens and The Thing, in which a dark and
isolated location is turned into a living nightmare for a few poor souls by an
alien menace with a penchant for surprise attacks. The throwback is to the day
when the action game genre was ruled by third-person shooters with plenty of
weapons and even more attacking monsters. Sometimes it can be fun to go agro and
simply blast your way through hordes of attackers…
The story sticks to the Sci-Fi basics: you’re a former military man who was
blamed for an accident that was not your fault and after being discharged you
are relegated to working as a mechanic on a backwater world. One night your are
sent to investigate the source of a power failure, and the mysteriously
abandoned power station proves to not be so abandoned after all…
One thing that makes Shadowgrounds stand out is the atmosphere it generates. The
lighting is suitably dark and subdued but the game takes things one step
further. The light sources cause just about every object in the game to cast a
long shadow. If that light source moves, like say, a handheld flashlight, the
shadows move in response to the light. It makes for a creepy atmosphere in which
you’re constantly doing double takes to see if you really saw what you thought
you saw. Of course, there are plenty of times when something really is there in
the shadows…
Another interesting aspect of Shadowgrounds is its weapon system. Weapons can be
upgraded by collecting special items dropped by the aliens that you kill. These
upgrades can enhance the basic behaviors of the weapons by increasing the ammo
capacity and reducing reload time, for example. You’ll also be able to make the
weapons more versatile with alternate fire modes. I particularly like the
flamethrower’s upgrade. You can spray fuel on the ground, wait for your enemies
to walk on the fuel, and then ignite it to burn the lot of them to a crisp. Mmmm,
barbequed aliens!
Shadowgrounds will be available in the Spring of 2006. If you have an itch to
blast your way out of a no-win situation ala Aliens, Shadowgrounds just might
provide you with that well-needed scratch…