You ARE the tower!
Easy use of the Kinect tag-line aside, this very concept is at the core of Sanctum's gameplay. Combining tower defense with first person shooting, Sanctum comes in along with Dungeon Defenders, Orcs Must Die! and Iron Brigade where they try doing more stranger experimenting with what can be done in the genre. However where Sanctum's problem lies in that while it is doing something fresh and not commonly seen, the very heart of it is just "decent" and that it's not really exciting and yet it won't waste your time. If you're looking for something in this space to entertain, I'd suggest others but even then, Sanctum's not the worst you can do.
The "plot" of Sanctum is simple: you play as Skye attempting to save a core from a race of weird looking aliens from destroying it. And that's pretty much it, while Skye herself is a cool design and the aliens are bizarre yet neat-looking, that isn't what you play this game for. You play for the numbers as you see your towers taking down the invading foes and spending them on more towers. These structures can range from anti-air, mortars, gatling guns, lightning towers and elevation blocks that help you stand on the turrets and not in the lane. What makes it unique is that you can actually build your own pathways and contribute to the action.
During the building phase, Skye can place, upgrade or sell the structures or her weapons to have a bit more punch. Once you're ready, you can freely run away and help contribute to winning that initial wave such as sniping the big aliens, using the assault rifle to dump into a huge crowd of dudes or using the freeze gun to either slow down or completely stop them from moving. The problem is that the gunplay is mediocre and a bit unsatisfying and while guns never run out of ammo, the importance of aim and reloading and using the right guns feel muted as the "oh crap oh crap!" moments commonly found in the genre kind of make it trivial. While the game does get progressively harder, your presence can at once feel like you don't need to contribute but it's certainly beneficial to do so.
The game does have co-op with a server browser and one thing I found which is arguably one of the best yet little-seen additions to a game: the chat functionality has a built in text-to-speech system. Similar to other programs available online, saying anything in chat brings that male robotic voice with the stilted delivery saying your lines which not only lightens up the proceedings when you say random things (or sing Don't Stop Believing as one group did) but makes one feel to swear excessively. The old adage of "it's more funner in co-op" is certainly true here but without a feeling of progression and limited games in the servers, I don't know the longevity of the game, despite 2 map packs...which might explain the lack of games on the servers but not willing to put money down to double check.
Despite at one point being updated what felt like 4 times a week, Dungeon Defenders is arguably one of the better blending of genres when it comes down to tower defense. Which isn't to say Sanctum's horrible as it is competently made with a nice soundtrack but I'm not sure if full price is the way to go.
