By:
Psygnosis

We gamers usually maintain a love-hate relationship with sequels- similar to movies right? But for Sentinel Returns I was hoping for some of that 'love'. It's been a long time coming too. The original Sentinel was spawned by Geoff Crammond's (a famous Brit-boy Programmer) prodigious talent back in 1986 and totally stamped its authority on the C64 gaming world- as it was back then. Not only did it take more than ten years for the sequel to materialize but despite Sentinel's success, it actually didn't spawn many clones nor did it form its own genre. The reason being that despite its blatant originality it probably didn't inspire too many of the Publisher's marketing departments into making wads of money. You see Sentinel was downright weird. Even weirder than anything a bunch of French programmers could come up with (now that is weird). Call it a real-time strategy puzzle game if you absolutely must pigeonhole the thing.

Developer's Hookstone and NoName Games totally gentrified the original's graphics with a true 3D engine. When I say gentrified, you have to bear in mind that back in the C64's heyday the slow scrolling of the 'chessboard' landscape pushed hardware to the limit. In today's 3D accelerated certified world Sentinel Returns has thus been fortified by a Glide version (although there is an ugly software version as well), which doesn't blatantly differ from the original's style either. The visuals may, at first glance, look unrecognizable to anyone other than fans of the original Sentinel. Your first thought might be along these lines, "Sure, the mountains have textures but where are all the developer's holiday snaps from the Himalayas that are superimposed into the mountainous environments then?". But looks can be deceptive and although it's not exactly super sexy with trillenear and/or anistropic filtering; it serves its purpose. And to the more thoughtful gamer, the dark, barren and bizarre looking visuals might actually seem nigh on appropriate. In my opinion, they serve their purpose being somewhat atmospherically eerie (especially the lighting effects). It's nothing like a first person shooter where you almost instantly feel at home. In Sentinel Returns you feel awkward and on edge in your surreal surroundings.