The protagonist is a base-level medic Garrit Sherova, assigned to a massive space station that is charged with the task of mining particles that represent some of the last energy sources known to mankind. It seems as though Garrit’s tour aboard the “Icarus” is doomed from the onset. From the time he sets foot upon the space station, nothing goes right. His shuttle crashes into the docking bay, the captain is assassinated, and the station itself is drawing ever-nearer the sun that it is orbiting. Moreover, the crew is suspicious and hateful toward one another, making it an unfriendly atmosphere at best.
The protagonist is a base-level medic Garrit Sherova, assigned to a massive space station that is charged with the task of mining particles that represent some of the last energy sources known to mankind. It seems as though Garrit’s tour aboard the “Icarus” is doomed from the onset. From the time he sets foot upon the space station, nothing goes right. His shuttle crashes into the docking bay, the captain is assassinated, and the station itself is drawing ever-nearer the sun that it is orbiting. Moreover, the crew is suspicious and hateful toward one another, making it an unfriendly atmosphere at best.
From the first person perspective, the user guides Garrit around the station to interact with over sixty unique characters. Garrit has the ability
to observe, eavesdrop upon or speak to these people in order to gather clues leading him to find and heal sick people, repair problems with the station, and ultimately save the “Icarus” from crashing into the sun.
The dialogue in Sentient offers the most intriguing part, as well as its biggest downfall. Everything in the game is text based, which creates a sterile environment to go along with fairly well-done characters. Some may argue that this reflects the medical nature of the protagonist. But, the user can actually control Garrit when he interacts with others. He can come across as happy or menacing, all with a click of the button, in order to better convey feelings with words. This unusual feature is very neat and detailed, but does not seem to blend well with the bland, text-based dialogue. Without the use of voice, or at least some witty text-based interaction, the fun interface and the many unique characters seem to pale. Still, the ability to truly micromanage a player’s vocabulary and gain experience and status based on this type of knowledge and fact gathering is unique and challenging.
Overall, Sentient is for the patient. It is not a bad game at all, but the interaction with AI is just too tedious for many of today’s more action-oriented gamers. It is a very aptly named game that requires a particular type of person to love it.
