When you think of family gaming with young children, Sanctum 2 may not be your go-to game. However, I think you might want to rethink that a bit. The bad guys are mostly overgrown bugs so if you’ve ever let your child kill a spider than they have basically done the real world equivalent of the pest control in Sanctum 2. The game also has a solid blend of strategy and action.
Strategy and Action – Interleaved
Sanctum 2 has a nice mix of strategy during the build phase and action during the fighting phase. In the un-timed strategy phases I can let my son do the building and let him lay down bases and teach him strategy, and then during the fighting he mostly follows me around and shoots things.
Sanctum 2 has a few mechanics that are conducive to playing with younger children. First, if a tower or base is put down incorrectly then you can pick it back up and lay one of your own towers down. Second, the interface you use to lay down towers and bases is visible on the other person’s screen so you can do the videogame equivalent of pointing at a spot.
The only downside here is the recent patch made it so that bases were distributed evenly, or if you join late the first person gets them all. When the game first launched I would take all of the bases and lay them down and let my son put the towers down. This was slightly more efficient, but we’re getting better at using the “lay a base down here” pointing method. I wish that resource assignment was somehow configurable. It’s a minor issue in the grand scheme of things.
About the Video
In the video my son provides his opinion of Sanctum 2. He thinks the “Enter” key is called “Shift”, which I find kinda cute. I realized at the very end that the battery was running out on my camera so I did not get as much fighting video as I wanted, but the best part is his commentary anyway.
