Sandstorm

In Brief

A reasonable looking retro top down shooter where you defend your base and convoys.

If you win a key for Sandstorm, please give some feedback about your opinion of the game, for example, what you liked or disliked about it, or how it could be improved from your point of view . If you don't like this genre at all, please explain why. What, improvements, if any, would change your opinion? There are thousands of subscribers to the game giveaway of the day every weekend which makes this an ideal forum for giving developers ideas as to what their consumers (i.e you) would like to see in a game. For example, you could suggest extra content such as better or more original mini games, or a level editor that you would like to see that would make it more appealing to you. Maybe you think the graphics are a little dated and are in need of re skinning, or maybe you've just had enough of the genre and want to see something different or something with more originality?

If you don't win a key, don't mind playing games via Steam or miss the offer totally you can get the game 24/7 via Steam HERE. It usually costs £1.59/$1.99

Commander, defend your base from numerous enemies, as well as accompany trucks to evacuation point. Quick reflexes and tactical thinking helps you in dynamic battles against hordes of enemies. Good luck!

Reference accessed HERE


Installation:

Assuming you win a Steam key for Sandstorm once you've found it (should be sent to the email you used to enter the giveaway) you have to activate the game via your Steam client. Once activated it will be permanently tied to your Steam profile and you'll be able to install the game at any time, anywhere on any computer, so long as you can validate who you are (usually via emails etc). If you don't have a Steam account you will first have to download and install the Steam client HERE

Then create a Steam profile/account. Once that has been completed you can input the Steam code that you've received (after completing the form filling) via the game button along the top of the Steam client, (located between friends and Help - see image below). From the drop down menu select 'Activate a product on Steam'. This opens a product activation window. Just follow the prompts to complete activation. Once the Steam code has been accepted, the game will be permanently associated with your Steam account and can be installed any time you wish.

If you have a problem installing or activating or getting Sandstorm to work, please visit the problems section over in the Game Discussion forums, which I've now incorporated into the FAQ's thread, and which you can find HERE

The Game:

Key Features:

50 levels

over 30 upgrades

8 types of enemies

5 types of super weapon

4 types of guns for your tank

day and night missions

I decided to purchase this game three days into the giveaway. There are four difficulty levels called Don't Worry, Let's Battle, Can Try and Not for U. With the former being the easiest difficulty. I started playing on the second easiest difficulty level Let's Battle and lost the first four or five games in quick succession becasue I thought you started off bound to your base, but this is not the case. you can move around the levels environment apart from obstacles such as buildings and walls by using either WASD for forwards, left, right and backwards movement or the arrow keys. Once discovering this I almost survived a level. To win a level you are given the tasks you have to perform to win that level and progress to the next level. For the first level you have to destroy 10 enemy vehicle. At the beginning of each level you can upgrade your tanks and weapons. there's a long list of upgrades available, which include adding health, speed, armour and repairs to your tanks, adding similar attributes to your bases, improving weapon effects etc. All these cost points. At the start of the game you have 10 000 which can be immediately spent on most upgrades. Costs vary from 100 for health increases to 25 000 for radar, which reveals all enemies on the board.

You can also configure the game , but settings are limited to changing the volume of the music and sound effects (just one slider), getting rid of shadows and reducing the visual effects of explosions from colorful to monochrome. There's no facility to put the game into widowed mode, which stopped me from getting any decent screen captures.

The only missions included in this game are protecting your base by destroying all enemies and evacuating trucks. There are eight enemy vehicles with varying attributes, for example the Roach is a very fast car armed with machine guns, but has weak armor, so is easy to destroy if you can hit it. There's another vehicle called the Ant that is armed with a dual machine gun and the tank. there are two types the standard tank that has a good combination of speed, armour and fire power and there's the Mammoth, which is a heavy tank, that is slower than the standard tank but well armed and protected with heavy armour. The other four vehicles are called Archer, Sandstorm, Coyote and Zeus respectively. you can find their attributes described in game . There are four types of tank weapons; the cannon, artillery cannon, missiles and Machine gun. Also found in game are lasers, but I've not played the game long enough to find those yet. you'll find details of all the weapons, what they do as well as all other items found in game at the start of the game. These will be accessible at the end of each level. to start a level click on the level number.

Looking at Steam Spy there's hasn't been many Steam community members playing this game since it's release last week and the only Steam community review I could find was negative, that said, it didn't really say much and nothing about the actual game. I couldn't find any videos on You Tube, though you can see a video of game play on the Steam page HERE.

Other Reviews, Videos and a Slideshow of images showing the How to Play pages:

None found

Conclusion:

Playing this on the hardest level I couldn't destroy one vehicle and on the second easiest level I managed to almost win the first level, but died with just two tanks to destroy (out of 10. Ifound the game a little too repetitive to really enjoy, but then again I'd not taken advantage of the upgrades apart from spending my first 10 000 on health upgrades and a little armour for my base and tank; however that didn't save me. Personally I think the developer needs to create some different environments. From the images i've seen online there only seems to be two variations of the same environemt, one during the day and one at night. Each levels environments look similar apart from different base placements, barriers trees etc and later levels I presume see airforce elements and a full range of vehicles that should add to the enjoyment.

After an hour of game play I wasn't that happy with game play. I think my main gripe comes down to the handling of the vehicle. Although the key bindongs were fine I never felt I was fully in control. Trying to hit enemy vehicles was really hard and I was constantly crashing into the immovable walls etc. Tanks should be able to crash through some walls, but this was not possible in this game. Also, your bases are not immune to friendly fire. the number of times i destroyed my own base while trying to hit enemy tanks was ridiculous. The developer should add a toggle to turn off friendly fire. This would give more options to perhaps enjoy the game.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the developer Energy Milk for giving away 100 keys for this Top down shooter and also to the game giveaway team, as always, for securing other ways to get free games, in this case a Steam key.