A
couple of years ago I watched the film Jupiter Ascending with
jaw dropped. The special effects, as with most big-budget sf films
this generation, were spectacular. But that was certainly not the
reason. I was agape at how stereotypical, how blatantly cheesy, how
utterly cheap the film was. Damsel in distress, galactic takeover
scheme, Cinderella heroine, overpowered hero, terrible one-liners—it
was as if the past fifty years of films and books deconstructing
precisely that type of narrative never existed. This leads,
interestingly, to ACE Team’s 2016 The Deadly Tower of
Monsters—but not for the same reasons.
A
throwback to 50s b-movie science fiction, The Deadly Tower of
Monsters is a game that intentionally presents an
extremely stereotypical experience. Maximizing fun through parody,
gameplay is framed as a b-movie and overlain with ‘director’s
commentary’ that converts the colorful, puzzle platforming/action
one expects of ray guns and aliens into a very humorous experience.
The
Deadly Tower of Monsters tells of intrepid spacefarer Dick
Starspeed (great name) after he crash lands on a strange planet.
Navigating a village of apes and dinosaurs, he meets up with Scarlett
Nova, rebellious daughter to the planet’s evil emperor, and is
subsequently kidnapped by a giant gorilla—one of the emperor’s
twisted pets. Scarlett rescues Starspeed, and together the two find
the deadly tower. Monsters and aliens attacking from all sides, the
two climb their way higher and higher into its reaches to defeat the
evil emperor and his minions.
If
that story premise sounds poorly motivated, it is intentionally so.
As stated, gameplay is framed as a sci-fi b-movie, which by default
rarely has water-tight plotting. Another way of looking at this is,
don’t worry about the story making sense as the experience is about
something else (namely making fun of shitty films like Jupiter
Ascending). This lends itself to: ‘What then is the point
of playing?’
A
mix of puzzle platforming and action, players control one of three
characters (interchangeable between Starspeed, Nova, and later a
robot) in navigating various obstacles and monster fights. The game
is played in third-person isometric view that occasionally switches
to top-down as players climb higher in the tower and need to shoot
monsters attacking from lower levels. Colors popping off the screen,
navigating the funky-tech tower and cheesy monsters is visually
satisfying. I wish developers had given players control of the
camera rather than forcing the isometric view upon them,
nevertheless, the laser guns, neon alligator people, teleporters,
etc. all have a rich, dynamic palette that attracts the eye and is
great fun to roll, blast, jump, and fight through.
In
combat, players have use of ranged and melee weapons, more and more
of which are found as the game progresses. (Some are great fun, like
the atomic frog gun, black hole gun, and laser whip.) Each of the
three characters likewise have their own special abilities that are
needed to get through various puzzles or reveal special items. There
are also cogs that can be collected to upgrade weapons. And lastly,
and perhaps most interestingly as I have not seen it in a game
before, unlocking trophies allows the player to upgrade their
character. Listed at terminals found throughout the game’s levels,
players can see what tasks need to be completed per trophy, and upon
earning one can in turn upgrade HP, health regeneration, weapon
recharge, etc. I usually pay no attention to trophies, but in Deadly
Tower it was necessary to build your character, which made for an
interesting dynamic on gameplay.
If
there are any other downsides to Deadly Tower (besides the
shitty isometric camera angle often blocking player view), one is
that the game really only warrants one play through. By embedding
the trophy system in gameplay, most players will have achieved a lot
of the game’s goals before completion. (For the record, after
defeating the ‘final boss’ and watching the cut scene, the game
returns the player to the prior level, allowing them to seek out any
trophies they may still be interested in.) And there is no
adjustable difficulty—no M.E.G.A.-hard mode to entice players who
want a more challenging test of their Deadly Tower skills.
Another is that there doesn’t seem to be any reason to utilize all
the player’s weapon stock. More preference or style, players can
use the weapon they think is coolest, and push on accordingly.
In
the end, The Deadly Tower of Monsters takes the piss out of
sci-fi films of old, everything from Planet of the Apes to It
Came from Outer Space, and does so in pretty much the only way
you can these days and still be taken seriously: parody. No Jupiter
Ascending, the game is aware of its cheese and attempts to make
the most of it. Fun and colorful, its art style hearkens back to the
Golden Age but has a layer of director commentary (with many lol
bits) that let the player know the game is something old yet
something new. Thus be warned that like all mediums which depend on
humor, Deadly Tower likewise depends on the appropriate
audience. Overall gameplay is simplistic platforming/action, but
contains enough variety and options to give players something more
than a basic Atari or Nintendo experience. And if nothing else, it
can be great fun using ray blasters, laser swords, and other such
retro toys in action against wild aliens and monsters. Not
overstaying its welcome, the game offers roughly five hours of
gameplay, which in terms of bang for buck, was more fun than games
like Bioshock, Uncharted, or others. If you like games like
Headlander, The Swapper, etc. and other indie/small
games that work in the science fiction medium in retro fashion, try
Deadly Tower of Monsters. It goes without saying Mystery
Science Theater 3000 fans will eat it up…
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