Huh. I typed a lot of words about Portal 2 there, didn’t I? Played a little Friday night, and the surprise at the beginning of Chapter Four was fantastic. If it had turned out any other way, I think I may have stopped playing. I <3 GLaDOS. And test chamber 19 almost got me. It was a brilliant puzzle, and I don’t think any game will ever match Portal 2 in terms of sheer puzzle awesomeness. I kind of wish I hadn’t waited so long to play it, but I having the other $30 still in my bank account makes me almost as happy.
I’m also investing PC gaming time in Sanctum, which is a first-person shooter, but also a tower defense game. Yeah I know your mind is boggled, but it works. I love it, and if my computer was able to run it without turning off the graphics and knocking the resolution down to 800×600, I’d probably spend all my time with it. I really do love tower defense games, but I can never seem to convince myself of it until I’m playing them. Plants vs. Zombies, for example, I actually didn’t buy until Stephanie got herself addicted to it.
Sanctum mixes it up a bit. Whereas most tower defense games have you build while your invaders are on the way (PvZ, My Life as a Darklord), or let you set down your defenses then start the wave and watch the massacre play out (Crystal Defenders), Sanctum has a build phase and an extermination phase. Like the latter type of tower defense game, you have a nice calm period in which to build and upgrade your defenses. This lasts as long as you want, letting you concoct the best setup you can muster, or just to bounce around and explore the surprisingly large and detailed levels. Once you’re done, extermination phase removes your ability to build and upgrade, as well as starting the enemy wave. BUT! Now you have guns, and rather than sitting and watching your towers rip them apart (though you can do that), you’re able to jump into the fray and pop caps in monster asses. My play style mostly sees me trying to snipe targets before they get to my turrets but around wave five or so (depending on stage and difficulty) even if I’ve spent all my resources on upgrading my sniper rifle, the enemies bulk up enough in HP and numbers to necessitate a line of defense.
Like any other tower defense game, I’ve spent a lot of time trial-and-erroring my way to perfect victories, but as of this post, I’ve yet to earn one on any difficulty higher than easy. Which is a shame. The multiplayer aspect is pretty awesome too, though it does seem to be considerably harder. Even on the first map, I’ve yet to survive an entire round in multiplayer. Super fun though, and I’ll likely stick with it. Not even because I just want to get as many cheevos as I can! That gets an exclamation mark because I usually only stick with games longer than I should for the achievements.