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Published
by The Adventure Company
Developed by Detalion
Release Date: 18th March 2005
Price: £19.99
There's
nothing I love more than a good adventure game (as far as
gaming goes anyway). Being a fan of the adventure genre
is definitely a frustrating business at times though. For
years it seems like we have nothing at all and then they
seem to arrive in abundance with most of the games on offer
lacking the qualities of yesteryears games. A few have managed
to keep us interested until the end but many have left us
feeling disappointed. Maybe 2005 will see a wave of quality
titles? The first one we'll look at this year is Detalion's
Sentinel: Descendants in Time.
You'll
play the game as Beni who is forced to explore the dreaded
Tomb 35 to search for secrets of the Tastan civilization.
Only one person, Ramirez has ever entered Tomb 35 and come
out alive. Why has Beni entered Tomb 35 then? Well Beni,
in his younger years, had earned a reputation for being
daring enough to enter the supposedly dangerous Tastan tombs.
However even he wouldn't voluntarily enter Tomb 35. The
reason he is doing just that is because his sister is being
held hostage by Doba, an unscrupulous black-marketeer, and
he won't release her unless Beni goes into Tomb 35. Doba
obviously hopes Beni will find a wealth of ancient treasure
for him to profit off. Tomb 35 is certainly not the friendliest
of places to visit though and Beni will find a multitude
of puzzles that block his way. Best of all though Tomb 35
isn't just another tomb and Beni is in for a big surprise.
Us
gamers all have ideas of how games should be. Myself I think
adventure games should consist of a quality story that has
puzzles that fit in with the context of the game. Whilst
I enjoy puzzles (Microsoft's Pandora's Box was superb) I
don't enjoy them in an adventure game where they have little
in common with the story. It feels like they are there just
to slow down your progress and bulk out what's essentially
just a short game. Detalion's Schizm II was guilty of this
crime in a big way and quite frankly it was irritating.
Sentinel isn't quite as bad but it's still very heavy on
the puzzles with little interaction with other characters.
Puzzle fans will love it but those who want an engrossing
story and more than just puzzles will find it becomes frustrating,
especially as the puzzles usually stop you dead in your
tracks until they are solved.
For
an adventure game Sentinel is amazingly good. The game is
in 3D and you'll play through in a first person perspective.
The controls feel more like a FPS than an adventure game
with the 'WASD' keys being used to control your movement,
the space bar to jump and the mouse to look around with
the left button being used to interact with objects. Graphically
though it is superb and the character models in particular
are the best I've seen in an adventure game. The environments
look impressive too and it's obvious that Detalion have
put a lot of effort into making the game look as good as
it possibly can. It will be a while before adventure games
look better than this.
On
the whole Sentinel is a solid and fairly enjoyable adventure
game, even if you are simply jumping from puzzle to puzzle
most of the time. Does this mean we recommend the game for
deaf gamers. No way! The reason I say this is that there's
some puzzles that rely on the gamer being able to listen
to sounds (bird noises etc.) and deaf gamers will find it
impossible. Whilst the puzzles are well thought out and
rely on a range of other different skills the fact that
some rely on sound kills the game as far as deaf gamers
are concerned (at least it will if you're playing the game
without a hearing companion). The fact that you can enable
subtitles in the game is insignificant when faced with obstacles
such as puzzles that rely on the gamer being able to hear
sound. If you're prepared to play with a walkthrough at
the side of you to help you through these sound puzzles
you can compensate for this serious disadvantage but that's
your choice and our opinion is that when you pay good money
for a game you shouldn't have to resort to methods that
enable you to get round otherwise impossible parts of the
game and as such we recommend that you give Sentinel a miss.
Overall
Game Rating: 6.0/10
Whilst it's easy to look at the score and grade we've given
the game and come to the conclusion that we didn't like
it that isn't how it is. In fact we much prefer Sentinel
to the Schizm games. However because certain puzzles rely
on the ability to hear it means deaf gamers should definitely
give it a miss.
Deaf
Gamers Classification:
(Click
here for details)
Puzzles
that rely on the ability to hear mean that the game isn't
suitable for deaf gamers and this is very disappointing.
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