For the last few weeks we have have been slogging away at Sanctum. It is developed by Coffee Stain Studios as part of Epic’s Make Something Unreal contest. It is a first person shooter tower defense game. You can check out a trailer over at YouTube.
I have been playing mostly co-op games lately and CSC added the ability to play co-op on several of the maps. First off, the game is fun. It is essentially waved based, monster attacks. You lay out a maze on the buildable spaces with empty blocks. Then you fill selected blocks up with towers of various types which include guns, mortars, electrical, and anti air type weapons. These weapons can be upgraded throughout the game as you get money to spend on upgrades. You can also select Televators which are blocks that allow you to teleport around as well as elevate you up to the level of the top of the block as you can not jump that high.
You are equipped with three weapons. The first is an assault rifle that has a grenade launcher as its secondary fire. The second is a sniper rifle with two levels of zoom. The third is a freeze weapon which can slow enemies down or stop them in their tracks with the secondary fire. These weapons can be upgraded just like the towers. The weapons essentially overheat, or run out of ammo. You then have to wait for them to recharge before you can use them. Weapon switching therefore is essential. I prefer using my sniper rifle to get some high powered hits in, switch to my assault rifle while the sniper recharges, and then flip back to sniper. Rinse and repeat.
I do have some issues with the game. First, the only way to really communicate with your teammates is by highlighting one block in the build mode. So, it is difficult to do any planning. Essentially, one person has to plan and build out the maze and then communicate what to build after that. CaGBlight over at the Steam Forums has developed a java based tool that you can use before your game to do some planning. Unfortunately, it is a little buggy for one of the more interesting maps. But oh well, it is free. This type of functionality should have been built into the game. The tool outputs images such as this one to show how to build the maze and what towers to build.
Second, the difficulty of the game varies too much from easy to moderate. On the easy level we can practically win a 30 wave game with our eyes closed. It is boring actually. However, on the moderate level, we have won only one time. We needed three people to do it and it was close. With two of us, we usually only last till wave 12 or 13. I would suggest lowering the difficulty of moderate down a tad and then keeping high where it is.
Third, I would bring out some more maps. Maps for a game like this are not complicated. You are not designing gigantic worlds with lush flora or anything like that. They are essentially grids that you can build on. In fact, several of the maps are just that. Or they should allow third party development of maps. But having more maps with more possible routes would certainly raise the challenge and creativity of defending the core in the game.
Overall, the game is fun. It was certainly worth the $3 or so that we paid for it from steam. I am not sure I would pay much more than that for it. Currently, it is $15. I would definitely not pay that. Keep in mind, I have not played the single player version, only the co-op. So, they may be much more playability in the SP. Another helpful resource for the game is the wiki article over at wikia.com.
What are your thoughts on the game? Any dislikes or likes?
Yes, I’m a fan of bad puns, get over it. After 
Mass Effect 3. Loved the first two, but was slightly disappointed that the second game dumbed down the RPG elements and focused more on action. Seeing the promos for Mass Effect 3 worry me further, because it seems to be almost *all* action. It appears they are billing it as a 3rd person shooter more than anything else. Yes, I will play it, and I’ll probably enjoy the hell out of it, but I want something more — dialog, character development, universe exploration, and RPG stuff like stats on weapons and abilities. Hopefully all that is in there, and am hoping the epic over-the-top action is just marketing hype.
Aliens Colonial Marines: A game that I haven’t heard much about, but I’m always skeptical of games of some of my favorite movie franchises. Sounds a bit like Star Wars Republic Commando with the squad-based mechanics and is billed as the “true sequel to the Aliens movie.” Hopefully it gives us the Aliens game we’ve always wanted but that, by nature, sets the bar so high it would be a minor miracle to achieve. The other factor is Gearbox. They’re responsible for picking up the pieces and finishing DNF, which isn’t really a good thing. I’m keeping my expectations low.
Batman Arkham City is an easy one. After having some early hesitation about Arkham Asylum when it was first released but then being completely blown away by it, I’ve been eagerly anticipating Arkham City. Admittedly, I haven’t seen too much about AC at E3, other than snippets about having a playable Catwoman character that makes me worry ever-so-slightly. I was pretty much sold on this game day one. Gaming media types tell me not to worry, so I won’t. This is easily my most anticipated game for 2011 and my only fear is that my expectations are so high, I may only be setting myself up for disappointment.
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Some people would call me a terrible gamer for not playing any of the previous games in this series. After playing Fallout 3, I did go back and play some Oblivion, but it just didn’t seem to hold up well even a few years later and I never got very far into it. Since buying into a bit of media hype and seeing a bunch of Skyrim footage, I must say I’m interested in actually playing an Elder Scrolls game, properly, for the first time. Looks like the buggy and sometimes ugly Oblivion/FO3/FO:NV engine is gone and new tech is in place. The potential is there for an epic story that I could end up enjoying more than the last couple Fallouts, which I was pretty happy with, although New Vegas lost its luster fairly quickly and was almost relived to make it to the ending.
Prey 2. Yeah, weird, huh? Prey 2, the sequel no one wanted actually looks decent. It’s hard to tell how it will shake out, but the media all seem to be pleasantly surprised by it, and what videos I have seen look interesting. Oddly enough, Prey 2 doesn’t have much to do with the original Prey, but hey, you’re some bounty hunter guy in an alien city-world like Coruscant with everything having a Blade Runner-ish feel to it. Assuming it’s as good as they say it is, this game could be a sleeper hit. Maybe I shouldn’t have wrote it off the minute I heard that Prey 2 existed. Go figure.
Assassin’s Creed Revelations. I basically played the AssCreed games backward. Dabbled in the first two games and wasn’t all that impressed, but got Brotherhood and absolutely loved it so much, it made me go back and play AssCreed 2, which I loved the second time around. Again this is another title I haven’t followed too closely, but like Batman AC, I’m mostly sold on it. It doesn’t even have to do anything revolutionary for me — just give me a tweaked Brotherhood experience and tie up the story and I’ll be happy.
Bioshock Infinite. Loved the first, found the second to be ho-hum. Bioshock Infinite is being made by Irrational, who did the first, so that’s reason alone to be optimistic. Infinite changes up the environment, adds a supporting character reminiscent of Enslaved and looks to have a more varied gameplay experience. I’m not 100% sold, but I’m definitely interested in it. Ken Levine also made a compelling argument for PlayStation Move support in Infinite and says they’ve found some good ways to use motion control beyond what you’ve come to expect from games that use waggle. I guess we’ll see.
