Hey tower defense fans….looking for a new game? Origin 8 brings you the third installment to their sci-fi tower defense series, Sentinel 3: Homeworld.

Sentinel 3: Homeworld ($2.99)

“Take the fight to the alien homeworld and unleash a massive arsenal of weaponry! Get up close and personal on the battlefield in your power armor to execute devastating attacks and support your defenses!”

Presentation

Following up on their previous game, Sentinel 3 doesn’t fail on presentation. I can confidently say it’s one of the most polished, well designed tower defense games on the AppStore. The levels vary in location, you might be playing in what seems like the middle of the jungle one level but be in the snow the other. The levels are all well designed, as well as varied, and if I may just say so, the entire game is very pretty.

Controls

Controls are as the usual tower defense game. Tap and drag on the unit you want and drop on the place you want to place the unit. Additional things (such a moving the commander unit, using sentinel units, etc.) are controlled by additional buttons on the right that show up when available.

Gameplay

Sentinel 3 has all the usual tower defense features you’d expect it to have, and if you’ve played the previous installments of the series, it’s all still here folks. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t add some pretty neat things though. One of the new additions is a commander unit. The commander unit can get rid of the units attacking your walls, where your weapons usually can’t reach.The commander also adds moral to the towers around him and gains XP in battle, letting you upgrade his abilities between levels. You can also equip him with other “talents”, such as being able to repair the barriers around them, move to nearing barriers, etc.

One of my favorite parts is the barriers. This makes it easier to keep the big guns at one place and just concentrate on keeping the enemies from going past that. As for the RPG elements,  although I enjoy them, if you just want to get into the game with all weapons, you can play with classic mode which works like the old Sentinel games. There’s also an endless mode that let’s you play with your stats from campaign mode, and uses Game Center for high scores.

Conclusion

Origin 8 had quite a challenge for them for this one, having to improve on the two previous Sentinel games while making it worth buying. Did they succeed? Definitely, they’ve managed to stand out from the crowd of other tower defense games on the AppStore. I’d definitely recommend you check it out.