Shot Aground

Shot Aground is a game with a bit of a western vibe and a mild sci-fi setting. You play the role of a man who’s ship gets shot down by some AA guns and now, deep into enemy territory, he must kill for survival.

Shot Aground has some interesting things about it. One of them is the way it blends over-the-shoulder shooting with top-down map roaming. When walking about you get to view the character in a top-down perspective that allows you to assess the situation and the surroundings.

Keeping an eye out for the enemy is a wise thing to do because the AI is somewhat unpredictable. If you set one of them off, you might just get surrounded before you have time to realize it.

While aiming, the game uses an over the shoulder perspective that’s rather nice, and oddly enough, empowering. Aiming takes a bit so positioning yourself before the shot is a lot more important than pointing the gun in the right direction.

For once, in Shot Aground you can’t aim vertically, only on the horizontal axis. And that’s a bummer since there are terrain level differences, and if the enemy is mildly below your scope, you can’t hit him at all. You just have to move around to find a better point to stand in and aim.

Another is the seriously unpredictable trajectory of the bullets. It feels kind of random, and it should because that’s how things are in real-life but here, the character has a beard, and in games, bearded guys shouldn’t miss.

To end, Shot Aground is a nice game to play whenever you’re looking to spend some casual time in front of the PC. It’s a bit slow-paced so be patient with it.