Sanctum Demo PC Review

Sanctum
Reviewed by: Luiz Marques
Review Date: 2011-03-28
Latest Update: 2011-04-15
4 out of 5 stars

When I heard that Sanctum was a FPS and a tower defense (TD) game, I just had to try it. But the overall effect is not exactly as good as I anticipated.


Warning: this review is of the version available at the time (20/Mar/2011). I've added updates below of the changes in the beta and final release.

While games with an FPS and TD component are not common, Sanctum is by no means the first. Iron Grip: Warlord is much older, and in many ways, better.

As far as graphics goes, Sanctum is clearly the best looking TD game ever done. It uses the Unreal Development Kit and they really spent time and money making great looking graphics. The holograms and big screens in particular look amazing.

The mechanics of how to build and upgrade the towers is clever - every single block shows a few holos of your options when you walk into it. The towers are about monster high, and you also build elevators so you have a platform to shoot from.

There are just 4 types of towers - lightning, gatling, air defense, and slow fields. Looks like no splash damage. One thing I didn't like about how they did it is the lack of some indication of the tower's range.

You just get two weapons - a silly looking assault rifle and a sniper rifle. These can be upgraded, but just a couple of times.

So, is Sanctum any good? I liked the gameplay, which is fast and furious. The monsters have some variety and you do need to change your strategy - while very artificial, the monsters do have different weakness, such as headshots, heavy armor on the front, etc.

The interface is acceptable, but a mixed FPS and top-view such as Iron Grip: Warlord would be welcome here.

Overall, I still like IG: Warlord more. The graphics are several years behind, but the gameplay is more natural, with fun levels and a more logical variety of towers.

Still, I'm buying Sanctum too - and it is well worth trying.

Update: I bought it and played the beta. It is quite different from the demo. The interface for building towers is much less annoying - you use a glove, and just point at the block where the tower will be constructed.

You also don't have to run around to get upgrades for your guns, you can upgrade from wherever you are. You get an extra gun - the freeze gun, which allows you slow enemies (main action) and shoot freeze grenades (secondary action). This seems to replace the slow field, which I'm not sure is a good idea.

There are a few other other tower types, such as Scatter laser and mortar. You also get an encyclopedia with data about the monsters (quite useful) and the weapons/towers.

One last change worth mentioning, the elevators are now televators. Just double-click on them from the overhead view (Tab), and you teleport to it.

Update on the first release: I just got the first release today. There are more levels and towers available.

There are several changes on this release. My favorite is the range display - very useful when positioning towers. Ragdoll monsters are cool looking, but they tend to bunch in a way that makes aiming annoying, since it is hard to see who is dead and who isn't in the resulting bundles as the monsters bump into their dead.

The first level (Mine) is very irregular - unlike Bridge, which is a perfect rectangle. In theory that should allow for more strategy and make the game more interesting, but in practice there is very little to do after initial placement.

Slowfields are back, but only starting on the third level (Arc) - which also does have a cleverer use of an irregular playing field.