Review 11: Shadowgrounds Survivor

After reviewing Shadowgrounds, it only seems reasonable to review it's direct sequel, subtitled Survivor.
This will be fairly short, because fundamentally, this is the same game but with new stuff. Hence, there's little reason to recap known elements.

What's different in the sequel? Not the core gameplay. You are still controlling a character FPS style but in a top down perspective (Isometric as we used to call it back in the day), you are still blasting aliens with a variety of weapons, and the sound still acts weird after playing for a while, at least on my 64bit system.

What's new then? There's 3 characters to play. Each has some unique abilities, and the available weapons (plus a few new ones I think) are spread out between them. Some levels follow a specific character, while others let you pick who to play as.
There's a pseudo-RPG system, where you can earn different upgrades as you slay alien spawn.
The flashlight doesn't suffer from an extremely erratic battery any longer.

The level design is, I think, more interesting. There's a number of outdoors levels, a larger variety of situations you encounter, and quite a bit more gore spread around. The voice acting is still quite cheesy, but the intermission screens are pretty effective. The marine reminds me of the voice actor from the old PC title Incubation. The sniper is manic and I rather enjoyed her ravings and the janitor / pest control guy is positively nuts.

In the end, there's not a whole lot to say. It's another Shadowgrounds, and if you felt that you wanted to play more of it, after finishing the first game, this is basically more, with more stuff.
If you only want to play one of them, it's hard not to recommend starting here, as it's a more fully featured experience.
If the first game left you cold, I'm not sure this one will change your mind, unless your concerns were really specific.

Graphics:
Quite detailed. The camera isn't too mean to you, and some of the levels look very nice, if maybe a little inconsistent at times.


Sound:
Can't comment too much, as it keeps cutting out after a while when I play.

Controls:
As before, FPS style and quite effective. I could never get a gamepad to work.

Gameplay:
It's blasting aliens and getting experience points for doing so. Pretty addictive.

In conclusion, the additions to the game are quite worthwhile, and increase the enjoyment significantly, pushing the sequel up to an 80% score.