THIS GAME IS CURRENTLY IN BETA! Sentinels: First Wave (which is currently in beta) is one of the most ridiculously amazing tower defense games ever, that blows Cursed Treasure right out of the water. With amazing three-dimensional graphics and views from the gun towers, Sentinels: First Wave provides an amazingly unique experience like no other tower defense game that I’ve seen. In this game you must place a multitude of towers on top of buildings and you must thoroughly defend the city with simpler and weaker gun towers, to more intense, explosive weapons, such as Meteor Storm. This TD will challenge you to fend of hundreds of invaders and the difficulty ramp can be rather harsh to new-comers.

Sentinels: First Wave

I remember becoming stuck on the first level! Seriously, when has it ever been possible to be stuck on the tutorial? Well, Sentinels: First Wave has made that possible. In other words, I thought that the difficulty was a bit to the extreme and that the difficulty ramp could have been redone a bit to make the overall game experience better. You know those games that only have 5, 10, levels, but all of them are frustratingly difficult, yet fun and exciting at the same time – well that’s much like this game. Sentinels: First Wave currently features five levels and all of them are rather challenging! What I did the first time through, was to stock up on Meteor Storm, this is a great damage over area attack that lasts for quite a bit of time, not to mention that it’s practically a one-hit, one-kill type of attack. Of course a combinations of other weapons is extremely important as well.

Sentinels: First Wave, is the most innovative tower defense game since the all-so famous release of one of the popular games on the internet, Cursed Treasure: Don’t Touch my Gems. The developer really took the tower defense genre to the next level with his/her Unity development skills, which allowed the game to be in 3D. The developer really took advantage of Unity’s awesome 3D system and really incorporated it beautifully into the game. The gun turrets, after a while, you can use them in the field of battle and you can manually control it through this first-person kind of feel, while shooting down and blowing-bits of pieces to the enemy aircrafts and armored vehicles. Sadly, the developer doesn’t advertise that too well and many people are probably missing out on this first-person kind of experience that really separates this game from any other TD I’ve seen.

Sentinels The First Wave - Example of the view from a Gun Tower

The artwork had to of been the most impressive part of this game. The 3D was enough to make my jaw drop, but the view from the Gun Tower blew my mind. I’ve never seen anything like this from any game that you can play in a browser and the graphics were just overall stunning, creating a magnificent scene for this game to play out on. The missiles when you called a Meteor Storm truly felt as through they were coming from the top of the screen and then as they shrunk you could feel them flying off towards their target! The map wasn’t too detailed, the ground could have had a little more detail included to refrain from that bland feeling, but if the developer was aiming for a more barren, wasteland kind of feel then he/she achieve it very well.

The music was very fast-paced, but it missed the action-packed, war-like feel. It just was very fast-paced and didn’t really communicate the war scene, but more likely just some sort of ambient music that’d be more suitable for background music. In a way, the lack of thriller, action-pack, suspense, etc, is made up because of the ambient feel and how easily the piece could loop. This piece could loop a hundred times and you probably wouldn’t notice it! The sound effects were amazing and really stood out in the music department of this game. Everything was perfectly detailed and when you fired the Gun Towers in first-person it was truly pretty loud and the sounds matched perfectly with the firing of the guns.

I thought that the difficulty ramp was a bit steep, especially for new-comers. Literally, on my forth or fifth try I beat the first level, which is the tutorial. Obviously, once you get a strategy down that works you should have nothing to fear in later levels. Remember that Meteor Storm are your best friends, they’ll kill anything and fast! Not to mention that they’ll kill multiple enemies in one shower. Keep in mind that quality is better than quantity, keep a some battle hardened gun towers with you and surround those closely with Meteor Storm. That was my strategy and it worked pretty well. I actually developed that strategy, which got me pretty far in the game, in the first level. The difficulty definitely needs to be tweaked a bit and there needs to be a little more pointers about what’s going on in the game, but like I said, once you get a handle on the game you should have a problem.

There was a strong sense of replay value in this game, but I felt that in-game achievements could easily be added – who doesn’t like in-game achievements? I noticed that the only real sense of replay value came from scores, which were both submitted to the in-game menu and the Kongregate API leader boards. I would have liked to see a bit more in the game, because it seems that the game is relying more on the Kongregate API to bring back their users, instead of the game itself. In reality, this is a very fun, very innovative game, but after you beat it are you going to be compelled to play it again? I’d like to see the developer add a bit of icing to the top of the cake and give the users a bit more replay value.

All in all, Sentinels: First Wave is one of the most innovative tower defense games to be constructed to date and it’s still in beta! I can’t wait to see the outcome of this game and I’m sure many people agree with me that once this game is done that it’s be on the charts as one of the best games around the portals. For now, in review, the difficulty was a bit high for the first couple of levels, but once you get a strategy down you’ll have no problem completing the rest of the levels. The tutorial was a bit hard and you truly had to know what you were doing to complete it, so if it takes you a couple tries or more than don’t feel bad! The graphics were stunning! The developer took full advantage of the Unity web player and incorporated that into his/her game. The music wasn’t that action-packed, it was just very fast-paced, but it’s loop-ability made it all worth wiled in the end. Sound effects were very impressive and were perfectly synced with the firing of the guns and other t5hings that would cause the sound effects. The replay value was pretty high, but I would have liked to see some more features to bring back players such as level creators, in-game achievements, etc. Overall, Sentinels: First Wave was an extremely innovative and unique TD that definitely deserves some credit. Be sure to keep an eye on this game as it is only in beta. I can’t wait to see what the developer does next with this game!

Play Sentinels: First Wave on Kongregate!

This Game Requires the Unity Web Player to run!