Sanctum Review

Game:  Sanctum
Year (s):  2011
Company:  dev.  Coffee Stain Studios
pub.  Valve Corp (Steam)
Engine:  Unreal Engine 3
Type:  First-Person Shooter Tower Defense
Metacritic Score:  71
My Score:  *yawn*

Price (as of  June 21, 2012)

Regular price on Steam:  $9.99
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping):  Not Available

Game Time:  from ten hours to eternity

Obligatory Trailer:  http://www.gametrailers.com/video/rex-launcher-sanctum/723617


Plot

Kill aliens before they reach the core!


Unreal!

Sanctum won two fourth-place awards in the 2009 Make Something Unreal contest.  If I think of it purely as a game mod, it's innovative.  If I actually look at it, it's ugly.  Simple textures, cartoonish characters, and polygonal structures look like Unreal Engine 2, not Unreal Engine 3.


Combat/Gameplay

Tower defense is a small genre that I first saw in Warcraft 3 (mostly in custom maps), and more recently in Plants vs. Zombies and Defense Grid.  The premise is simple: waves of enemies are after your core (or other central location), which they will damage.  They typically won't attack anything else.  The player builds towers to attack the enemies and block a straight path to the core.

Sanctum happily satisfies that, providing various grids to arrange your mazes of towers by.  Each tower has a use.  Sanctum adds a first-person shooter aspect to the mix, with a handful of basic weapons.  Both weapons and towers can be upgraded.


Soundtrack

The music in the game is a highlight, and is most easily compared to This Will Destroy You.  The music isn't good for all occasions, but has it's moments.  Most game soundtracks aren't even worth mentioning.


Expansions / DLC / Sequels

There are a handful of DLC, most of which cost money.  These includes new levels, new weapons, and the official soundtrack in both MP3 and .wav formats.  Including the DLC, there are ten levels.


Final Thoughts

The Bad:  This game looks like crap, and fails to teach the player basic controls and scenarios in which the various towers and weapons excel.  The game also has no plot, and only features a handful of levels without spending more for DLC.

The Good:  Sometimes I like to play something mindless, and there's some achievements for people that are interested.  The game has an alright soundtrack and is pretty cheap.

Verdict:  This feels like there were no objective play testers as part of the development process.  I wouldn't strongly recommend this one.