Tower of Guns Review

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• Developer: Grip Games
• Publisher: Grip Games
• Genre: Shooter
• Release Date: 10.04.2015
• Platforms: Xbox, Playstation, PC
• Game Supplied by: Xbox

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Welcome to the Tower of Guns, the title alone had me intrigued enough to watch the YouTube video and from there I just had to play it. Once all the boring loading and stuff was over I decided to do a rare thing, click help. I know what you’re thinking all games are pick up and play but for once I decided to make sure I didn’t miss something simple to enjoy the game more. Whilst I learnt nothing truly groundbreaking in my browsing a 1 line statement did have me intrigued “it is OK to die a lot in Tower of Guns.” Straight away I’m fearing the worst but in a great and over excited way.

In we go!

From the weapons selection screen and additional perks, Tower of Guns had me giggling in its cute descriptions and it continued as the game began. A nice couple of prompts appeared again just tickling my tummy a little to keep me smiling and now its going to start sounding like a warm and fuzzy review but even as the exploration began I was yet again tickled by yes you guessed it another moment, (I won’t share them as its amusing to discover yourselves)

Then the carnage began, room 1 and whilst not exactly challenging it got the idea of how I was meant to manoeuvre through the game and how in later levels I might need to react and adapt as the difficulty was cranked up. Varied guns appear and start making your path up, down, on lifts and jumping over platforms to the next room treacherous but you need to destroy those guns as otherwise the orbs they drop cannot be harvested to upgrade your weapons and regen your health.

Be sure to grab orbs on your travels, like in every game they can do no harm, blue gems provide power ups for your weapon, coins will be needed later as you can use them to buy health, perks and weapon upgrades, red orbs regenerate health and if you spot a large gold coin grab it they are worth 10 and we all love GOLD!!!

Quickly enough I completed the Foyer level and liked the fact there were benchmark times, this gave me that little incentive to push harder and faster in the next level as who wants to be bottom of your friends leaderboard?

From here the game evolved in small stages, platforms became more involved, the range of guns and enemies attacking your increased and as expected and reliably informed by the help guide I died a few times, however it was not all death and destruction I spotted many hidden rooms with secrets in them that you can use coins to buy max health and other special upgrades. End of level bosses offer some cool upgrades to your weapons such as the pizza shooter machine gun or shotgun upgrade (you can imagine the carnage) but remember die and you lose them.

So far its enjoyable however the most frustrating thing is that it does not save, you have to start again each time you die and despite (and i don’t like admitting it) some in-game help (you’ll find out what i mean if you die a few times, so don’t give up) dying and a full restart is frustrating.

slow and methodical or fast and calculated

Here is the turning point though, once you realise that shooting stuff is fun and satisfying but working out how to get through a level faster to then kill the end of level boss to make unbelievable times leaves you with a decision to make, slow and methodical or fast and calculated.

Thankfully there was a reprieve when I changed the game to roll the dice mode, random rooms as you progress made the game change and much more enjoyable but it gets serious once you enter the endless mode and compete against other times on the leaderboard.

The quirky part of the game lies in the narrative text pop ups as you progress and in some cases not progress. Music, lighting and even the game itself is almost explained and validated by the developer in these pop ups and although at first I though yeah nice it tells the player not to be a tool and complain but get on with it and destroy things i found myself shooting and not reading. Tower of Guns did offer a challenge there can be no denying that and as you go further in and progress it becomes more challenging and more satisfying when you find another room or defeat another boss after figuring out where the weak spot lies.

Summary

Tower of Guns is a nice alternative to the story driven first person shooter we are more accustomed to. The diverse variety of guns firing at you and the quirky take on your own weapons is refreshing however gameplay matters!

No doubt though the weapons firing at you can really have you moving around the issue here was that once it got a bit busy on-screen the frame rate lag kicked in and really disturbed the best most challenging parts of the game.

If you are a challenge orientated gamer this could keep you busy for hours however if your skills are lacking or your reactions too slow and your game might be restricted to just a few rooms making for less than desirable gameplay, this just comes down to styles and types of games you enjoy though.