SENTRY Preview

SENTRY, developed by the indie studio Fireblade Software and released on Steam Early Access, is a game from a genre not that well-known — FPS/tower defence. Before playing SENTRY, I didn’t even know there were any of these games, so I was pretty excited to try out this new form of videogames I’ve never seen before.

There isn’t much of a story to SENTRY, but there is a little bit of background to the situation you’re in — Earth has fallen, and you are fleeing across space inside your vessel. As part of a program called the SENTRY Defense Program, you’ve been put into stasis, and whenever defending the vessel is needed, you are thawed from it and are ready to prevent the enemies from reaching the Core and destroying it.

The gameplay, on the other hand, has a lot more to it. You have different items and weapons you can acquire throughout the game, all used to kill the alien invaders before they reach the Core. Every subsystem in the ship is its own level, and if one falls, the next one will need to be defended, right until the enemies manage to destroy the Core. The items you can get are all deployable: anything between simple traps, conveyor belts, and full-on turrets can be used to try and stop the enemies from reaching their goal. The weapons are also just as varied — you start with a simple pistol but can acquire a lot more weapons, such as a rifle or an SMG. As SENTRY is still in Early Access, there are even more weapons and deployables planned than the nine weapons and 15 items that are in the game right now. 

Though the gameplay is varied and fun, there are some big issues with it. Firstly, it can feel a little slow to get to the point where you have enough items and weapons to really feel the variety, which can be a little discouraging in the first few levels. Another issue is how the lives system works in this game — you can die a few times, but once you run out of lives, the entire game is over, and you have to start from scratch. This is by far the most infuriating aspect of the game since you just replay the same levels when you die, and there is barely any randomness. The explanation for what items do is purely visual and not exactly clear most of the time. I’m still not sure what some items do precisely, which is a little bit of a bother, even though that didn’t prevent me from beating levels.

The game’s visuals are pretty simple, and everything looks clean; This fits in with SENTRY taking place sometime in the future, and the aesthetic fits everything perfectly. The biggest issue I’ve had with the graphics is that sometimes a lot is happening on your screen, which makes it really hard to tell what you should do.  Sound effects are also really great, and there is nothing that feels out of place, except maybe some of the sounds the alien creatures make, but it’s a very small issue.

Overall, there are some issues with the current state of the game, but they can all be fixed before the full release. While right now SENTRY is a very short experience, the developers said they are planning to expand on it, so with many improvements, it would also be nice to see more levels added to it. For now, I still think that anyone interested in this kind of unique gameplay should try it — it can be tons of fun.