Shadowgrounds

Shadowgrounds is a video game that consists of 1 release

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Shadowgrounds is a top-down shooter set in space where you must defend a colony from an invasion of hideous creatures in primarily dark environments.

Overview

Shadowgrounds is a top-down shooter developed for the PC where you are a simple engineer of a space colony on Ganymede, one of Jupiter's Moons. Developed by Frozenbyte, the game features many similarities to Doom 3, in that both concepts involve the invasion of a space colony of some sort by aliens/monsters, with the player defending using a decent selection of weapons. The atmosphere is also similar, in that they both heavily use lighting to create a tense and nervous environment where it is not always easy to see and shadows are cast by dynamic lights to create creepy moments where you can see the shadow of a creature bot not the creature itself.

Shadowgrounds takes place from a top-down perspective reminiscent of older shooters and the monsters come at the player very fast which is also another old-school element, these both make the game fast-paced and accessible but also mean there is not a whole lot of depth. As you progress through the game and kill more monsters, you have many opportunities to upgrade your arsenal such as a damage upgrade, rate of fire adjustments and other beneficial enhancements. Although the core of the game is definitely pushing through the environments as you mow down wave after wave of monsters, the game does again share elemnents with Doom 3, as there are PDAs and computer stations situated all over the environments which provide some back-story and plot clues, although not enough to explain everything.

Plot

The story in Shadowgrounds revolves around the Ganymede colonies and the main character Wesley Tyler who is controlled by the player. When the game starts out, Wesley is just a regular wrench monkey working on the repair base when he is called to check out an electrical malfunction. Soon after, unknown lifeforms start swarming the base and Wesley is forced to fend for himself.

Gameplay

Shadowgrounds is an extremely action-focused game with a top-down view of the player. It is at it's core a corridor crawl through the Ganymede bases and surounding environments mowing down monsters. The gameplay has been compared to the likes of the Alien Breed franchise for it's fast, action-heavy style, and also Doom 3 because of the setting, the use of darkness, monsters and so on. The use of a flashlight is also similar to that of Doom 3, and the game even features an Aliens-style radar movement tracker that lets you know where enemies are in your vicinity.

As the player kills more and more monsters they can pick up upradge tokens to upgrade their weapons throughout the game, each weapon having 3 possible upgrades, the better ones requiring more upgrade pieces.

For the most part the player will be running from point a to point b, dispatching of monsters along the way, although sometimes the player will be asked to repair broken electronics, defend a base sector with other NPC's and shut down barriers to allow the player to progress.

The game features several Boss battles, some more memorable than others but all offering a reasonable challenge.

Weapons

Pistol
Pulse Rifle
Shotgun
Flamer
Laser Rifle
Minigun
Grenade Launcher
Rocket Launcher
Railgun
Electric Gun

General Information Edit

Game Name	Shadowgrounds
Platform(s)	PC
Publisher(s)	dtp entertainment AG
Developer(s)	Frozenbyte, Inc.
Genres	Add a new genre Action Shooter
Themes	Add a new theme Sci-Fi
Original US Release	May 5, 2006 need a fuzzy date?
Original US Release	know the real date?
Aliases
ESRB	ESRB: M