Sentinel Review

Who knew that inanimate objects could cause so much frustration? Squares, spheres and triangles... they’re all evil, emotionless shapes that deserve nothing more than total annihilation. No, I don’t have a bizarre phobia of shapes, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I developed one after playing Sentinel.

At first glance, Sentinel may appear to be a run-of-the-mill tower defence title, but there’s a few quirks here that make it stand out from the rest - the main one being the game’s use of music. Like most games in the genre, your aim is to defend a single base (in this case, a power core) from attacking enemies [viruses] that appear from multiple different angles. For each enemy you fail to destroy, the base loses a life: lose it all and it’s game over.

As usual, you can place defences around any given map to defend yourself, and Sentinel utilises this frantic strategy - where you decide on the fly what type of defence should go where - by providing a neat selection of music tracks that synchronize with what you see on screen. House music isn’t a particular personal favourite of mine, but it’s use here is excellent and fits remarkably well with Sentinel’s Tron-like aesthetic. And the more units you place, the more frantic the pace of the music becomes.

The 22 standard stages on offer are grouped up and separated by locked gates opened with tokens. Completing each stage will grant you one token and reaching perfect status (attained by clearing a stage without letting a single enemy through) will grant you a second, and boy are the later stages challenging.

Power management is key to success if you want a perfect run. Each challenge grants you a block of reserve power that can be funneled into any defence you choose, boosting range and power. The downside to this is the loss of power from other defences on the board, creating a nice risk/reward system. Gems can drop from deleted viruses - which can further upgrade your arsenal - but these are rare and better utilised by purchasing new armaments from the core.

Progressing will also unlock a handful of bonus stages which mix up gameplay by focusing on survival. Your core only starts with one life on these levels and at first appear impossible. One such stage sticks you with nothing but a pulse beacon that slows enemies and a consumable turret with limited use. By killing one explosive virus at the correct time, I was able to cause a chain reaction that wiped out an entire wave of the buggers. To mop up the rest, I had to sell my sole defence and proceed to place mines everywhere to finish them off.

Sentinel’s an excellent slice of gaming when you don’t have time to involve yourself in another sandbox epic, but it suffers from some poor explanation at times, leaving you confused as to what each defence does. On top of that, a lot of the enemies that swarm you look very similar, making it hard to discern one from the other. These are only slight nuances though, and if you’re a fan of the pick-up-and-play nature of tower defence titles, Sentinel’s a great candidate for something to spend your pennies on.