At first glance, Sentinel Returns is totally baffling. If you just pop in the CD and start playing, you'll be convinced that the code itself is somehow broken. You can't move. All you can do is cause giant metallic pylons and cubic fleshy dirt clumps to appear and disappear. And you can look around. That's it. Just what the heck is going on here? One of the most riveting puzzle games in recent memory, that's what.
Early observations are correct, however. You actually can't move. Not in the traditional sense at least. Instead, you create robot hosts that look like statues with disembodied, featureless heads. You "move" by transferring your sentience into it. Huh?
Here's the scoop: You exist on an alien landscape draped in perpetual night. Watching from the highest point in the landscape is a being called the Sentinel. He is part fleshy colossus, part abstract sculpture, and part gun tower. He is your enemy. He is continually scanning the landscape, looking for you. When he finds you, he locks his gaze on you and begins absorbing your energy.
Everything in this world is based on energy and elevation. You can create or destroy objects if and only if you are above them - hence the Sentinel has a terrific advantage. You begin each level on the lowest plane in the level, with a handful of energy. You use the energy to create boulders and robot hosts and begin your climb. Your goal is to attain an elevation higher than the Sentinel's and absorb him. The basic trick is to create a stack of boulders, with a robot host on top. Then teleport into the host. From there, you should be able to create a single host (no boulders) on a plane higher than the one you started on. You then reabsorb your old boulders and host. You now have the same amount of energy as when you started, but you're on a higher plane. Closer to the Sentinel. And easier for him to see.
You can also create trees to block his gaze. More importantly, a fair number of them are scattered throughout each level, and they can be absorbed for their energy - as long as you're higher than they are. So, climbing serves another purpose as well, to unlock potential energy resources.
How do you control all this? Unfortunately, most of us will do it with the standard PlayStation controller, since the game is much better suited to a mouse. The D-pad moves a cursor slowly around the field of view and rotates that field when the edge of the screen is hit. You can also lock the cursor in place for more of a "mouselook" feel, but ultimately the D-pad is lethargic and frustrating. The game does support the mouse, but the D-pad is still required for the various buttons, which are used to create trees and boulders and robot hosts, absorb objects, and transfer sentience from one host to the next. There's also a hyperspace button, but that should only be used in emergencies, since it requires a lot of energy and always drops you off at a lower elevation.Once you overcome the initially alien feel of the game (read: once you figure out what the heck is going on), you'll get totally sucked in to Sentinel Returns' urgency and paranoia. The game is actually very simple but utterly addictive. You've got to work fast. The Sentinel's field of vision is only 28-degrees wide, but it's also invisible. You could be discovered at any second. You only know it's on you when you hear your handy scan detector start to buzz. Play is a delicate balancing act. The higher you are, the greater your potential to absorb energy resources, and the more naked you become to the Sentinel's evil eye.
At the same time, there's something frighteningly slow about the game. This is to its credit. Movement is challenging (I never thought that would be a "plus," but there you go) and always deliberate. When the Sentinel sees you, you've got to get out of there. But you can't just run; you have to find a good location by guessing the limit of his current field of vision, create a robot host, and teleport. Fast. It never feels fast enough though. Like nightmares and horror movies, the pursuer is all the more terrifying because the pursued is so sluggish.
The game's sound and look amplify the sense of dread. The ominous score is provided by John Carpenter, the horror master who directed and scored Halloween and Escape From New York and practically invented the cheesy heavy metal intro. Its constant ambient creepiness is perfectly suited to the Sentinel's weird world. Visually, the swirling and darkly psychedelic skies, stark landscapes, and the ominous and distant, ever-searching Sentinel make for a bleak yet lush fantasy environment.
At the same time, there's a sketchy quality to the overall look that will make total immersion into the environment impossible for some. Ninety percent of the game's visuals are simple geometric shapes and a checkerboard playing field. From the beginning of the manual ("An unreal universe exists."), to the design of the Sentinel itself, so much is made of the game's surrealism, it seems like an alibi for the lack of any palpably realistic environment. It's no wonder the game doesn't make any sense for the first hour. The relationship between the game's visuals and play mechanics to any kind of objective concept is so abstract that sometimes it feels like you're playing a beta.
For all its mood and murk and first-person 3D anxiety, Sentinel Returns is ultimately a puzzle game. Yet it is so much more visually compelling than its puzzle brethren, who for the most part still look a lot like Super Breakout. Whether or not the bigger picture of the game is too abstract for you, or you don't give a damn about what games are "about," since it's the gameplay that really matters anyway, Sentinel Returns is easily the most fun addition to the genre since, well, the original Sentinel. And like the previous game before it, it's the pacing and the immediate brain-teasing logic that make it so addictive.
