I remember my youth during the video game arcade era: Space Invaders, Galaga, Donkey Kong, Asteroids, I Robot, Scrambler, and many others. Even after I bought my first computer, an Exidy Sorcerer, which supported many fine games (often clones of the arcades), I still would spend an AUS .20 piece or later CAD .25 in many a machine. Eventually home consoles would come to replace the arcade experience; arcades with pinballs and video games would slowly fade away.

I enjoy “retro” style games, even the ASCII graphics of NetHack , Air Traffic Controller, Empire, so when I saw on Kickstarter a campaign for a retro side-scroller shoot’em’up I was intrigued. After reading the blurbs, watching the vids, and testing the demo on a Android based Nexus 7 tablet and the promise of a Windows version I jumped in.

I’ve been waiting just over a year for Hyper Sentinel since backing it on Kickstarter. Today it was finally released on Steam and consoles. I finally got to install on my Windows laptop this evening and I played for almost a blasted (literally) hour. I’m love’n it. I probably spent the equivalent of 16$ in quarters.

Hyper Sentinel has almost the same intensity as Defender or Star Gate, but a little more forgiving; its not out to kill you at every turn in order to suck in all your pocket money. It doesn’t need too. While it is fast paced, challenging, and sometimes chaotic, its still fun. Its a game I can still play without needing the reflexes of a 16 year old. And combined with the visuals, it successfully has that retro arcade game feel.

Well done Huey Games! It was worth the wait.