I like the first Sanctum, but I don't love it. I appreciate its bold mixture of first-person gunplay and tower-defense strategy well enough, but after finishing it I found that I had no desire to rematch its mindless enemies, severely limited maps, and numbing repetition even with friends. I loved the idea, but not the execution. Sanctum 2 is different; this sequel takes all those ideas and runs with them in the right directions, improving in almost every conceivable way upon the original, and I find myself texting friends at ungodly hours to join me to play through a few more rounds.

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As before, your task is to erect a maze of walls and turrets to keep the enemies from the your power cores for as long as possible, but the most immediately noticeable improvement is that this is a far more beautiful and varied game. Sanctum 2's colorful but sometimes confusing graphic novel-style story panels lead us through a lush, vibrant world spread across 15 maps. Some of these maps do away with the research facilities almost entirely, and the battles unfold before refreshingly natural surroundings or rusty train yards. Each level feels markedly different, both in look and design, and in most cases they don't overstay their welcome.The waves of alien enemies are tougher, too. The varied cast of creatures come in relatively small numbers to counterbalance their increased hit points, and ever so often are accompanied by hulking bosses that smash through towers as though they were rotting Lincoln Logs. (It’s a pity that they're merely gargantuan versions of the foot soldiers instead of distinct monsters.) Even placed intelligently, the limit of 10 towers usually can’t handle the hordes alone, which keeps the pace fast and desperate.In a welcome surprise, many of these these enemies will turn and chase you down if you get too close – a needed improvement over their oblivious marches in the first game. I frequently found myself using it to my advantage by luring a tough enemy who'd managed to pass the towers away from the cores.On our side, there's more personality to be found. Rather than cloning the original's sole ginger heroine, Skye, in co-op, Sanctum 2 also lets you to step into the role of her spunky sister, a robot who could pass for an 23rd-century Apple product, or an easy-going male shotgunner who looks like Adrien Brody's long-lost badass brother. Each comes with some personality in the form of distinct voiced exclamations and their own primary weapon, ranging from Skye’s humble but punch-packing assault rifle to her sister Sweet's massive grenade launcher that sets enemies on fire.While they tend toward the familiar archetypes like shotguns rather than inventive sci-fi gadgetry, it's all wrapped in a memorable Portal-meets-Mass Effect aesthetic, and each brings helpful strengths to different situations. Playing alone, for instance, I found the robot's sniper rifle too limiting, but in co-op, I think it's safe to say that that rifle's precision and range saved the round on numerous occasions.Regardless of which character I played, I found the gunplay of Sanctum 2 more intense than what I saw back in 2011. Switching out your weapons to let them recharge keeps your damage output pumping when you need it most, although I can't deny that I miss some of those frightful moments when a gigantic bug was nearing the core and I was stuck reloading.Character development is also boosted by a leveling system that rewards success with excellent perks, and they can be combined in great ways. I matched a perk that damages enemies by jumping on them with one that boosts your speed every time you do damage, allowing me to dart in and out of the fray like a ninja. These perks allow you to adjust your gameplay style to suit a particular map rather than trivializing early ones because you're now too powerful for them.Between firefights, even the business of building your mazes has been significantly refined. Sanctum 2 lets you incrementally upgrade each tower with small boosts to range and damage with every coin you pump into them instead of lump-sum upgrades. Upgrade tiers still exist, but they're more focused on altering tower behaviors, such as firing speed, rather than firepower. Having the choice between how to upgrade, rather than just whether to upgrade or not, is a massive improvement in between-round resource management.Indeed, the real fun of Sanctum 2 lies in its cooperative play – or at least when it gets moving. However, the fact that only one (or two, tops) players can build anything during a given build phase, there's a lot of time between rounds spent jumping around listlessly waiting. It's a bummer in random groups – I often thought I had a better or faster strategy in mind but couldn't do anything aside from wait them out... or, in a move that's sure to create intra-team drama, sell a tower they've already built and replace it with my own. I could see this getting nasty on Steam or XBLA fast.Still, setting a match to the endless survival mode while and fighting back the hordes in a full group presents both a welcome challenge and a handy means of earning XP. For a bonus challenge in the Survival Mode, you and your group can even select up to five feats of strength in the campaign mode for 20-percent increases in XP each, which affect gameplay by limiting respawns or allowing enemies to move faster and heal themselves. With all five triggered, Sanctum 2 becomes a brutal challenge even with a full team and all available perks. In short, Sanctum 2 provides a wealth of tools that let you play this fun, action-packed tower-defense hybrid the way you want to play it.