Crossbow Reviews

7800 Rank: 37th Genre Rank: (Shooting) 4th Awards: 8th Best Originality Say This Planet's Name Three Times Fast Pros: Unique Gameplay Cons: Lame Atari Light Gun/ Lame Planet Bosses The Underwhelming Planet Boss

Overview: My dad was from the south, and if you know anyone from there they normally have several amusing quips, similes, and metaphors at their disposal. My personal favorite of his was, "That's as goofy as a ran over dog." When I played Sentinel for the first time, I heard his voice running through my head. Sentinel is a bizarre Light Gun game that forces a ridiculous story line down your throat and then proceeds to dazzle you with a game so strange it's hard to enjoy. As the story goes, you are a scientist who has designed this wonderful weapon that is a glowing orb of light and orange marmalade. Aliens are about to attack dear old terra firma, so you take the initiative to attack their planets first with the glowing "Sentinel". The strange thing about this Sentinel is, it's completely worthless. As it races across the surface of the planets, we must defend it with our light gun. This would be all fine and good if the Sentinel eventually would ever do something for us, but alas, all it ever does is become a hindrance.

Graphics: Parts of this game contain pretty cool visuals, while other parts are just plain ugly. On the positive side, the in-game menu is really well done. It houses the score, the High score, your Sentinel's strength, Super Shot availability, a map of the planet surface, and the current planet's name. The glowing ball of gooey delight actually has a certain Shrek appeal to it, and some of the planet visuals are decent. On the negative side, your enemies leave a little to be desired. They, for the most part, lack creativity and detail. This geometrical nightmare army will only intimidate ninth graders who are still in remedial math classes. Glowing circles, triangles, and spinning squares make up the enemy brigades. Planet bosses are even worse.

Sound: I must be in a good mood, but the mindless in-game music and sound effects are not irritating me right now. The sound effects are similar to the game Meltdown, where misses and hits will treat your ears to your typical zip, zonk, and bloop cavalcade. The in-game music is not very appropriate to a "blow up a planet" mission, but it is catchy all the same.

Gameplay: Like the game Meltdown, everything clever and engaging in the gameplay department is either almost ruined or completely ruined by the system's terrible Light Gun. Fortunately for Sentinel, the actual action screen is much smaller than Meltdown's because of the large in game menu and the immense size of the Sentinel. This makes the enemies a little easier to hit, therefore making the inaccuracy of the gun less irritating. Parts of the game are very clever. Similar to Crossbow, the action is in third person, as you protect the Sentinel with your gun. Enemies attack it, not you. As the Sentinel gets pelted with enemies and projectiles, its energy and size decreases. On the other hand, it absorbs the energy from a fallen foe, in turn repairing itself and increasing in size. The one thing that the Sentinel does do besides watch your TV and drink your sodas without getting a job, is it can unleash "Super shots". When things get a little hairy, you can occasionally shoot the Sentinel and everything on the screen will evaporate. Pretty cool.

Originality: Sentinel has its moments. The Super Shot, the ability to beat the game, and the revamped Crossbow feel of the game are all pretty cool features that can keep 7800 fans coming back for more. The game is definitely unique, but like Jinks and Crack'ed, the game's background story is just a little too odd to take seriously and for me that hurts the fun factor of the game. Personally, if Aliens were coming to kill us all and the best defense we had was to invade their planet with a giant crazy ball of goo and an off center carnival gun, I believe we deserve extinction.

Value: The game is only 4 worlds deep in action, and the game itself is fairly simple to beat. The repetitive gameplay will probably bore most gamers, and the planet bosses are laughable. But, the game is unique and pulls a few surprises. Secret areas can be unlocked that contain hordes of power-ups. Finding these are tough to do, especially since missing four shots in a row will deplete the Sentinel's energy. This adds some replay value to a game that desperately needs it. I think a two-player option where someone drives the Sentinel and the other one protects it with the gun would have been awesome.

Overall: Like Meltdown and Barnyard Blaster, Sentinel suffers from the system's terrible Light Gun. If the gun was a better friend to you and me, Sentinel would be decent game to pick up and play every once in awhile. If you can get past the silly story and some lame visuals, this cart might be worth the expense and trouble obtaining it. Sentinel is a game that was only released in PAL version, forcing American fans of the ProSystem to lust after it for years. Thanks to ResQsoft, Sentinel has been unleashed on our shores. If you talk to a Brit, tell them they can have it back, along with Mad Cow disease.


Note: If you purchase the NTSC version of Sentinel from ResQsoft, please note that the sound can be turned on and off by toggling the left difficulty switch.


Only Review on the Net!
CV's Atari 7800 Panoramic Froo-Froo: 3.0 out of 5.0 (Fair)
The Video Game Critic: F


Additional Info: I would like to take this time to thank Mitch Orman, owner of The Atari 7800 Page for allowing the use of his screenshots for this review.

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