Are you brave and skilled enough to breach the Tower of Guns, climb to the top, and… save the president’s daughter? reclaim your inheritance? deliver the groceries? Like many other features of the game, the story in Tower of Guns is randomly generated from a large number of possibilities. Tower of Guns is called a “Lunch Break FPS” by Joe Mirabello, the game’s developer, and what that really means is that it is a combination of a first person shooter and a randomly generated rogue-like. It is fast paced, frantic and challenging, but it is also a lot of fun.
Tower of Guns will start you off in the same room every time. From there on the rooms are randomized. To be specific, the rooms that are placed change, because the game has a bank of rooms that it uses. There is a lot of variety in the rooms that are placed, and you are not likely to see the same place twice… at least initially. Aside from the first level, that is always the same place, you will begin to notice rooms repeating through the run… sometimes they’ll inspire a hint of fear upon sequential visits as you remember horrors unleashed by them in previous runs. To help keep things feeling fresh Tower of Guns also has a wealth of secret areas and areas that only trigger at specific times (for example, a specific number of runs), which means that while there is the danger you will see some rooms more than once, this is likely to only happen after several runs.
Because this game is a rogue-like, when you die the game is over and you must return to the beginning. The only things that carry over are the guns and perks you have unlocked during various runs. Guns start off very weak, the description of the first gun essentially advises you to choose a different one,but as you progress, you will gain access to better weapons, such as a hand cannon that is literally a cannon you carry in your hand. As you play the game you will pick up blue power ups, which will fill up your weapons bar and level up your current weapon. Leveling up a weapon also adds modifications to them. For example, upgrading your Pizza Oven Gun will cause it to shoot saw blades. But don’t get too attached to them, as you take damage, your weapon’s bar will deplete. If you take enough damage, your weapon will de-level and potentially lose mods. It is important to note that there are other weapon mods that can be picked up during the game independent of your weapon level, which also alter how your guns work.
At the beginning of a new run you will select a gun, and a perk, and go forth, but there are other things you can acquire during play. There are randomly generated badges that change how the game plays, and they have a lot of different effects from altering the way you move, giving you health upgrades, providing you with the ability to obtain items from across the room, and even going as far as to change the difficulty of the game. Tower of Guns also has items, which are far less common, and usually require coins to purchase during your runs. The items have different effects and as far as I’ve seen during my runs, it can be anything, from shooting a glowing cube that launched my character into the air, to healing, etc…
If your recent experience with shooters has been the modern offerings from AAA titles, you may want to dig into your late 90’s library before playing Tower of Guns. This is old school, twitchy FPS gameplay at its finest. You will remember what its like to try to aim while strafing and shooting, you will circle frantically around enemies that charge you and and try to find the perfect timing to stand still for a few seconds and shoot an enormous turret that lets out a deadly barrage of explosive shots before you keep moving. And Tower of Guns is hard. It has no qualms with unleashing a bullet hell on you while you are trying to dodge self destructing robots that are charging right at you. Like other rogue-likes, this means it can be frustrating, but it also gives you a nice feeling of satisfaction when things finally start going your way.
As I mentioned at the top of the review, the game has different stories or dialogues every time you play it. Tower of Guns itself refers to it as silly dialogue and you can even go so far as to disable it completely. The dialogue has no effect of the game itself, your goal will always be to reach the top of your tower like Roland Deschain in the Dark Tower, regardless of which dialogue you end up getting. But they can be very amusing, and even interesting, such as a chat between the developer and a hypothetical gamer. They add great color to the game, and although you will start to see them repeat after a few runs it’s still interesting to see how each story progresses as you get farther and defeat more bosses.
Tower of Guns has boss battles at the end of every level, and like the rest of the game, they are challenging. The bosses really like to fill the screen with things that will try to kill you, so much so that sometimes, they feel as if they were inspired by games like Galaga or other “bullet hell shooters” rather than by FPS’s. The bosses highlight a few of the issues I have with the game. The first one is that some guns just feel they have no power until you have at least a few levels in them, and combat by attrition simply is not that fun. The same can be said about movement. With no upgrades you start the game off with terribly slow movement and a puny jump that will frequently frustrate by leaving power-ups out of your reach. These are minor gripes, but they are there.
It is really amazing that Tower of Guns is a one man project. The gameplay is fluid, it has some very nice graphics and music, and it also has some great designs and mechanics to back it up. Tower of Guns is perfect for those looking for a game that doesn’t demand a huge investment of their time, but does have strong variety and high replay value. Like most rogue-likes, it might not be for everyone, however, it is more accessible than some other games in the genre. The game will especially tickle you if you ever find yourself feeling nostalgic for the days of games like Unreal Tournament, Doom, and Quake. This is a well put together title that is simple, unique, and fun. It is certainly worth the $14.99 asking price on Steam, so go out there, purchase Tower of Guns and begin your climb to the top.
