At this point in the life of the App Store, I’m not sure if it’s fair to say that the tower defense genre is any more overloaded than any other genre of game, but there definitely does seem to be a real lack of any kind of innovation in that section. There are a ton of tower defense games out there, but very few of them are that memorable. Much like match three games, you’ve really got to do something different to stand out. Recently, Guns’n’Glory sticks out as a game that features more than typical tower defense gameplay, but the Sentinel series has always been my favorite tower defense games on the App Store.
The original Sentinel was released back before tower defense games really started blowing up on the platform and provided some really solid classic tower defense gameplay with great graphics, a cool array of towers, and a high frame rate that didn’t stutter even on fast forward modes. Sentinel 2 was a worthy sequel in every way, and my review of the game reflected just how much I enjoyed it. The second Sentinel introduced things like orbital weaponry, new tower types, along with both repair drones and energy drones to keep your defenses online. Sentinel 3 takes the series another step further, providing RPG elements and further customizations.
The forefront of these new features it the commander unit, which is deployed at one of the barriers on the map. This unit provides a morale boost to any tower within range, increasing its damage. In addition, it also has ranged and melee attacks to take out any incoming enemies that your towers missed. Progressing through the campaign awards experience for your commander, and with each level you’re able to increase the commander’s statistics. These range from pumping up its own health, ranged attack, melee attack, and how much it boosts the strength of nearby towers. In addition, you also slowly unlock additional abilities such as being able to jump between barricades, temporarily boost your damage output, and others.
Also unlocked through the game are the different tower types and orbital attacks. However, unlike previous games, you’ll need to buy these individual towers with in-game credits. In addition, much like how Plants vs Zombies offers a wide array of tower options but only space for a few of them when you’re actually playing each level, you’ll eventually only be able to bring eight of the ten towers with you. Similarly, the various orbital super attacks work much the same way. Eight in all are included, but you can only select up to six at a time. Between levels you’re given the opportunity to modify which of these defenses you have access to.
All this flexibility greatly increases the level of personalization in the game, and much like how there wasn’t really any “right" way to beat levels in Sentinel 2, 3 takes this even further. For instance, it seems equally viable to dump tons of points upgrading your commander’s attack capabilities as it is to pour all your points in to the nearby tower strength boosting effect. With a strong commander, you could place towers elsewhere, and with a commander that is good at boosting your towers, you’d want to place as many nearby as possible. The amount of different approaches you can take to the levels included in Sentinel 3 make for a surprisingly deep tower defense experience.
Sentinel 3 was submitted on November 16th, and is awaiting Apple’s approval. Things tend to get pretty backed up towards the end of the year, but the good news is Origin 8 doesn’t plan to hold up the game’s release for a specific date. As soon as Apple throws the approval switch, we’ll be in tower defense heaven. For more details on Sentinel 3 check out the thread in our upcoming games forum.
