Sentinel Returns

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Review: Sentinel Returns

Primitive graphics and sound notwithstanding, the elegant Sentinel offered the addictive challenge of making your way to the top of a chessboard landscape, evading the rotating gaze of the robotic Sentinel that stood watch at the highest peak of the terrain. The object was to absorb the energy of trees and spend it judiciously to create boulders and robot shells that helped you make your way to the Sentinel's position, where you finally had to absorb the menacing Sentinel itself and advance to the next level. There were 10,000 levels in all, and it was a uniquely challenging task to see your way to the end-what with that Sentinel sucking the juice out of you if his gaze ever found you, forcing you to seek a frenzied escape in what felt like the grip of a slow-motion tractor beam.

It was great, simple fun. But Sentinel Returns? What was there to return to? I mean, in all honesty, there wasn't much to the original. (If you're reading this, Geoff Crammond, I mean that in the best possible way. You designed a great game, and part of what made it so great was that there was almost nothing to it.)

But Psygnosis tapped British developer Hookstone to bring Sentinel into the modern 3D era. The idea, I suppose, was to infuse the classic gameplay with a graphically rich modern sensibility. The unimaginative chessboards of Sentinel have been overhauled, and now the game takes place in big, forbidding, cavernous landscapes to the paranoid strains of a John Carpenter (Halloween) soundtrack.

But Sentinel Returns is no more involving than the original, which worked so well because it was a product of more primitive times. Playing Sentinel Returns is a lot like playing Computer Battleship-mostly you're just thinking about how much fun it would be to crack open an old Battleship set and plug the little red pegs into the little gray plastic ships.

For those totally unfamiliar with Sentinel, the game is basically just Capture the Flag, but the flag is actively trying to spot and destroy you. Taking out the rotating Sentinel requires stacking boulders to gain height on the landscape, building robot shells to occupy, and then moving to a higher position-until you're finally in a position to take the Sentinel.

That's all there is to it. Psygnosis has added a four-way multiplayer option for a scramble to take the Sentinel first, which includes the ability to warp your opponents back down to a lower height if you catch them vulnerable. Who cares? It may be the most uninteresting multiplayer match yet devised for the PC, and smacks of a marketing decision ("It's gotta have multiplayer, people!").

There's nothing to sustain interest in this game after even five or six levels, much less the 600 that are required to beat the game. Sentinel should've remained a fond memory from a time when elegant simplicity could elevate a game beyond the constraints of limited technology. We have the technology now. Let's make some new games with it.-- Daniel Morris / GamePro