If - or rather, when - humanity does begin to colonize other planets, no doubt there will be a luddite contingent screaming for the first batch of intrepid colonists to beware the treachery of the unknown. Even if space is only populated by cute little aliens who bring us gifts, there will be those people who think it is just plain wrong to leave the bosom of Mother Earth. But these are small beans indeed, percentage-wise. The group that includes those rose on the myths
and legends of our culture concerning space colonization - i.e. it is filled with angry aliens that want to eat us - make up a good 99% of the population. Imagine the sheer "I told you so!" barrage to contend with if we do encounter a race of aliens who want to eat us or turn us into clothing and/or building materials; cranky old men saying "Didn't young people learn anything from Aliens?" and "Get off my space-lawn!" to no one in particular.

That said, Shadowgrounds: Survivor is a top-down manifestation of a cross-section of the horrible stuff humanity has imagined to hang out in space. Neither first-person shooter nor 2D shooter, Survivor, the sequel to the original Shadowgrounds, is closer to Gauntlet, with a dash of Doom 3, a really hearty dose of the Alien(s) franchise and some extremely nice lighting effects. The story is entirely pointless - you play as one of three survivors of this bad thing (evil aliens invade/feed/break stuff) that happened to this place (space base on one of Jupiter's moons) and you must kill the hell of out of everything chitinous. Thankfully, as with every game to feature a gun, there are not only massive stockpiles of ammunition but incredibly volatile barrels readily available; combined with the helpful flammability of the invading aliens, your one (or in this case, three) man (well, two men and one woman) against-the-odds crusade to escape from certain death that is, no doubt, so crazy it just might work.

The crux of the game is action; while the tension-filled atmosphere of the "lonely space base" motif is used as a backdrop, the foreground is filled entirely with bullets and blood. There are no quiet moments of desperation beyond the first few seconds of a new level, a simple prelude before the nonstop alien murder begins anew. There are certainly no forced stealth sections to play through, either. The player quickly learns if they enter an area with lots of barrels, bullets and grenades, it means one of the odd "caged in" fights is going to begin, where all passageways are blocked off with impassable forcefields and a giant onslaught ensues. This is one of the more annoying conventions within the game, increasing player challenge at the expense of flow.

And shooting flow is where Shadowgrounds: Survivor shines - you can almost hear your character yelling "GET SOME!" while firing an impossible amount of bullets from an incredibly fast and powerful gun with absolutely no recoil or buck. Run forward to meet angry giant aliens, then run backwards until they are dead, shooting all the time. Spin around to meet the charge behind you, run backwards and shoot additional targets until they are dead. Repeat as required. It's not
so much strategy as skill, and an understanding of which aliens you can let hit you and which ones need to be avoided - anything with explosive or electrical attacks, for starters. Once that mighty flow of shooting, dodging and strafing has begun, it doesn't subside until the end of the level, or you hit one of those aforementioned electronic cage fights.

A simple leveling system has been included, allowing neat character perks (heal instantly, jump on top of aliens and ride them like a bronco while shooting them in the head, and whatnot) as well as weapons upgrades. Thankfully these aliens often carry bits of metal with them - they are a curious race of homicidal xenocides, to be sure - which can be used to increase weapons power and clip size, among other bonuses. This system, though very rudimentary, does add a bit of
compulsion to one's murderous rampages, a hint of "what next?" in a game that does tend to substitute monster variety with overwhelming volume.

Shadowgrounds: Survivor also requires a bit of graphical beef to run on the highest settings, which mostly focus on increased lighting and physics effects. The lighting, especially within the indoors sections, is actually quite nice and worth the processing power if you can afford it. Increased physics effects just appears to mean more junk flying about in practice, which would be a bit more suspenseful if there was any interest in building tension rather than relieving it. A greater amount of suspense emerged from trying to adjust the interface just right. While you can customize the views, controls and camera speed of the game, it takes a tremendous amount of tweaking to get the turn rate to feel smooth enough to avoid nausea but quick enough to prevent being eaten from behind. Some experimentation with different settings may be required, void where prohibited by law, et cetera.