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Who knew that a moon currently orbiting around Jupiter could be so exciting? I certainly didn't until I booted up the preview code of Shadowgrounds: Survivor, the spin-off to 2006 Finnish developer Frozenbyte's minor 2006 hit, and found that the docile surface of Ganymede is, actually, anything but: it's crawling with aliens, all of whom want to rip you to shreds.

Set for release this month, Survivor uses the flimsy plot of typical science fiction clichés to present you with a relentless, almost endless stream of nasty creatures to tackle. You're stationed on Ganymede; part of a squad of human marines who happen to be the last survivors — hence the name of the title. The alien invasion is in full swing and, in true game and movie fashion - you're the only person who can stop it.

This plot isn't an integral part of the game, merely serving as an appetising introduction before throwing you head-first into the meat of this galactic adventure: combat.

Gameplay revolves around the proliferation of big, nasty enemies to be defeated by big, nasty guns. Levels are split into two distinct areas — normal missions that set you down in a long but linear environment to progress through the story, and survival levels that let you loose in a smaller area to see how long you can withstand a constantly toughening enemy assault — a bit like ancient MegaDrive game Smash TV that's now available on Xbox Live, only more sophisticated.

How the story missions will pan out is, at the moment, mostly a mystery — they haven't yet been implemented in the preview code — but we're promised cut-scenes and a more involving plot come the full release. Teasingly, there are snatches of dialogue left in the four preview levels that hint at a behemoth upcoming battle, too.

When you're in the level the game becomes a pretty simple — and addictive — blaster. Controls are modelled around WASD movement and strafing, with FPS-standard keys for primary and secondary weapons, reloading, and everything else. The mouse wheel scrolls through your weapons for easy choosing, although the movement system does fall slightly flat when you're trying to adjust the camera. Using your cursor towards the corner of the screen in roughly that direction, and you can hold down the Alt key to control the camera alone, but when you're surrounded by swarms of enemies, the dancing of your cursor across the screen to eliminate them all will sometimes jog the camera, making it quite difficult to target them all — costing you health in the process.

Most of the time, though, the game mechanics are praiseworthy — you traverse the levels, encountering a steady stream of enemies and eliminating them with your powerful arsenal. The preview code, though, has some definite kinks that need ironing out before a full release: namely, the opposition AI. It's mostly fine, but occasionally you'll load up a level and the creatures will ignore you. It's a shame, especially since when it works the AI is simple but effective: seek and destroy. It's certainly a bug that'll be removed before release, thankfully.

The graphics, in a way, compliment the gameplay: direct, and to the point. The environments aren't stunning yet — there's still some atmospheric effects that will compliment the title of 'Shadowgrounds' to be implemented — but they're attractive and serviceable. All of the level, despite falling into a variety of varied themes — lava, technological, snowy or desert areas abound — are full of destructible objects that, whilst being mainly generic staples like boxes, crates and burnt out cars, add a welcome supply of volatile explosions to proceedings. The enemies are suitably alien-like, with most falling into two camps — inspired by creepy-crawly bugs or robots.

You can choose from three classes of marine to take control of during the game, from the basic grunt to more powerful troops, and each is easily upgradeable with an RPG-esque system. Enemies will drop upgrade parts that you can use to improve your collection of weapons with various new attacks and attributes. Killing bad guys will also improve your character through a simple experience point and levelling-up system that you've seen in a thousand other games. And some missions will even let you take control of an unstoppable mech that has infinite health and ammunition — although most of your gameplay is, thankfully, in the hands of your trusty human. The mech levels are fun, sure, but they remove any tactical thinking from the game that helps to provide most of the challenge as you balance health, ammo and objectives.

This is a promising preview version of Shadowgrounds: Survivor indicating it's a title worth looking for upon release — because most of the faults, like dodgy AI and twitchy controls — will have been ironed out come the autumn release to leave a game that'll entertain with even more graphical polish to do justice to the atmospheric name. Gameplay is solid, addictive and fun — if slightly limited. Just make sure you check all the dark corners — there's normally a bad guy lurking.