Just in time for Black Friday, Origins 8, known for their wildly successful Sentinel series, is launching Sentinel 3, the third iteration of the tower defense franchise. For those who haven’t put their grubby little fingers on the first two, the Sentinel games offer an extremely rich tower defense experience without sacrificing textures that make traditional tower defense games seem bland. Instead of blob-like units and terrains, Sentinel has realistic enemies, great weapon effects, and plenty of battlefields worthy of an action title. According to Origin 8, Sentinel 3 is going to blow the other two out of the water, offering new weaponry, new abilities, and plenty of new units to keep fans of the series happy for a long while.

“This is our biggest game to date,” said Lead Programmer and Designer Paul Jackman, “And an ambitious step forward for the Sentinel series. Our new mechanics give players even more strategic and tactical choices, plus the ability to customize their resources to support their play style.”

“Sentinel fans are constantly asking for more,” he continued, “So we’ve streamlined the content creation system to enable us to deliver. If you compare the number of maps and missions in Sentinel 3 at launch to the first two games, you can see that it’s already paid off in a big way.”

The new game features 20 levels across 14 maps, over 20 unlockable turrets, orbital ship weapons, automated drones, high resolution retina display graphics, endless and classic modes, and support for OpenFeint and Game Center. If you are a fan of the tower defense genre, it’s imperitive that you don’t miss out on what will surely be one of the best games of the year.