It met with predominantly negative reviews which praised its visuals but criticized it for clunky controls and poorly designed, frustrating gameplay.

Each level comes with its own complement of enemies, with many of them resembling creatures from Earth such as apes or wasps, but are mechanoid instead of living organisms.

[8] Shadow Master was developed by Hammerhead, a newly formed company founded by Chris Stanforth, formerly of Traveller's Tales.

Critics unanimously praised the game's visuals for their cutting edge effects and imaginative design,[14][15][8][19][20][21][25] but most found its gameplay severely lacking.

"[15] One of the most common particular criticisms was that the combination of a vehicle-bound player character with first-person perspective results in odd and often clunky controls, and the vehicle frequently gets stuck.

"[20] Kelly Rickards of EGM added that "the futuristic buggy-vehicle bounds around so much, it's a challenge just to shoot a simple enemy, let alone drive in a straight line.

"[15] Critics also expressed frustration with the lack of a map system,[15][20][21] unintelligent level design,[14][8][20][21] and the long stretches between save points.

"[25] GameSpot commented, "Hackneyed plot aside (an extreme evil has used up all of its planet's natural resources and is coming to - gasp - take ours), this game is actually pretty decent for a 3D shooter.

"[20][21] GameSpot's review for the PC version cited issues with the multiplayer portion, noting that "Gameplay seems to slow down to the speed of the slowest machine on the network, which is a phenomenon I haven't encountered in quite a while.