Game Review - Star Sentinel Tactics

Personally I really like tactics games. Games such as Final Fantasy Tactics, Ogre Tactics, Fallout Tactics and Front Mission series are awesome. Disgaea series are another hardcore RPG gamer must play. When I heard this game from my friend, I have been looking forward for its release. But it seems it is a totally disappointing.

Generally, this games looks like X-COM clone or UFO Series. Even UFO aftermath which was released years ago has a better features and gameplay. Though Start Sentinel has slightly better graphics on the dynamic shadows and lighting. Others than that. I don't think is worth playing.

People who like X-COM or UFO series might like this game. But if you don't wanna spend money on game, you can still go for UFO:Alien Invasion, which is an open source game available for download. Their community is quite active!

Graphics: 5/10

I think the graphics is just pretty outdated. It seems like I am playing UFO:AI. Other than having shadow and graphics. The animation of the enemies and character are truly not refine enough to be standard commercial game. Perhaps developers are focusing more on their game play rather than graphics. Usually a good tactics game relies heavily on gameplay and turn based features.

Interface: 4/10

I think the interface for this game is really bad. It seems like some college student tries to impress their lecturers with fancy interface but without friendly tool tips. Graphical interface wise it looks OK at the first impression, but in game playing are really messy. While pressing ESC key doesn't even bring up the menu in the first place. Users have to explore further in order to know what all those button means. In game tutorial is sufficient for gamers to proceed with their unfriendly user interface. Compare to fallout tactics, by using point and click mouse, the game can just proceed smoothly with action pack.

Gameplay:4/10

It just has basic turn based features with reserve Action Point to counter attack during enemy turns. Other than that, it has dozen of weapons, which doesn't have in depth customization. One of the must have feature in tactics game are the character configuration with weapons, armor and gadget that allow players to form different strategy. But it seems this game has only inventory, gunz and armors only. I have no more comments on research tech tree, character skill trees and etc..

Sound: 3/10

I don't know where they got the sound effect. When the monster got shot, I just heard duck quacking!

Story:??/10

the story telling is really boring. I believe playing DOS version Monkey Island with Guybrush Threepwood is much better.

As a conclusion, I would suggest the developer made this game into Web edition, that allows people to compete over web with MMO style. 3D is not really a matter anyway. Since gamers who enjoy tactics really like to configure and customize whatever weapons, items and characters they have. They more indepth they can go they more mesmerized they will be.