Tower of Guns Review

[Lacoste]

Bullets from cannons and sawblade projectiles; plasma and lasers and big friggin' missiles; blown-up loot piñatas emptied of bling; these are a few of my favorite things. Tower of Guns is a genre mash-up of bullet hell games, fast-paced first-person shooters, and roguelikes. And while the game isn't without its flaws, it delivers a high-energy rush.

The objective of Tower of Guns is to, well, destroy the Tower of Guns. To do so, you navigate randomly generated levels chock-full of cannons, roving robots, and secret caches of cash. Each floor has a handful of rooms you have to blast your way through on your way to the boss. Of course, because you only have one life available for each attempt to defeat the tower's gauntlet, it's sometimes wiser to keep your gun holstered and simply play dodge(cannon)ball instead, though by doing so, you miss out on loot just begging to be grabbed.

 

 

                           
 

You begin each run by selecting a gun and a perk. The two guns available at the start aren't anything special, but you quickly unlock others; then you can decide what playstyle suits you best. Your gun options are quite diverse; whether you want to fire bouncing sawblades, highly explosive "unicorn vomit," or the FPS-staple rocket launcher, Tower of Guns has you covered. When it comes to perks, you quickly realize there's no better option than your initial choice--the Bluegrass perk. Because who doesn't want to start with the ability to triple jump?

As you progress through the levels, you gain access to additional jumps and faster movement while seeing a marked increase in difficulty. Although the early levels may seem sluggish, the pace ramps up until you've become completely lost in a delicate waltz weaving in and out of the oncoming onslaught. A normal successful playthrough only takes about 30 minutes (assuming you survive), but the endless mode sends you back into the tower time and time again until either your sanity or your body breaks.

 

 

 

No attempt on the tower is the same twice, and although many of the levels will appear familiar as you play, there are always new level chunks to discover or a new enemy layout in a familiar landscape to keep repetitiveness from setting in. Even if every run were on identical terrain, for better or worse, each run is further differentiated by the loot that spawns. Some attempts may give you access to weapon modifications or items that make your destructive path easier to achieve. Others may give you more jumps sooner. If you're extremely unlucky, you may just find coins and hearts everywhere, leaving your arsenal a meager sampling of the game's great sandbox.

 

 

 

 

                                   

 

 

Although you have only 10 guns to choose from, many more can be found throughout the game. Each gun progresses in power with experience pick-ups. On my best run, I had the option of swapping through six different guns I'd found to lay waste to the turrets impeding my advance. My personal favorite was a trumpet that launched shrapnel, but the game's Experience Cannon, which literally turns any acquired experience into a weapon, was certainly the most unique.

 

The game controls are very fluid and simple to learn. Occasionally, you may encounter hitches when jumping, but that usually only happens if you're trying to add too much finesse to your ledge dancing. If you find it too difficult to leap across a great divide, you can elect to fire your weapon straight down and use the game's physics as a backwards propellant to give yourself more lift. Aiming can be a little difficult to grasp while moving because every shot is a projectile, forcing you to consider travel speed and distance.

Each boss fight offers its own challenges. Though most are fairly easy to handle and are just larger versions of the constructs you fight as you progress through a dungeon, some, such as the stationary Pipe Organ or the Tilt-a-Whirlesque Egg Scrambler, offer a unique experience you can't find in the ordinary halls of the citadel. The game even ensures that fights against the same boss aren't identical. The most notable example of this is seen in run-ins with Dr. Turret; the level's layout can change, greatly altering the experience by segregating the different areas in which his weak point may spawn. Once you get enough jumps and jump height, some of the boss fights begin to get repetitive, but that's only a concern during the long grind of Endless mode--even then, it's not a common issue.