The Deadly Tower of Monsters Reviews
'The Deadly Tower of Monsters' is initially extremely charming and unique, but it runs out of steam way too fast to carry it through its already short campaign. While the aesthetic is terrific, the gameplay and humor don't work well enough to make the game terribly memorable. It's not a particularly bad game, but at best, it's a dull, mediocre footnote for a studio that's done far better work than this.
As a whole, The Deadly Tower of Monsters does a phenomenal job of creating exactly the experience that was advertised. Crammed to the gills with campy humor and a series B-movie look and feel, this is nearly a must-play for anyone who's a fan of the old, cheesy films of the past or who enjoys listening to C-list directors ramble near-incoherently about their creations.
In the end, The Deadly Tower of Monsters was not very good. A funny game still needs to be fun to play and this game wasn't. It felt like a bunch of guys got together with a good joke and tried to fit a video game under it without any real game design experience. There really was potential in the storytelling, but it fell flat when the journey between joke A and Joke B was peppered with thoughts of shutting the game off out of boredom.
Fans of cult sci-fi films and/or Mystery Science Theater 3000 will get quite the kick out of The Deadly Tower of Monsters. You can't help but smile as you melee and shoot your way to the top of the emperor's tower, experience the ridiculous cut scenes, and literally fast forward and rewind the game as you would a VHS tape. Just like the movies it tries to emulate, the game is so bad with its special effects, dialogue, and set-pieces that's it's rather good.
I commend ACE Team for trying to come up with something that's authentic and clever. But the developer only got The Deadly Tower of Monsters halfway right. The excellent premise and likeable characters outshine the streamlined gameplay. ACE Team has something promising here, but it needs to nail the mechanics next time.
There's no denying that style is an integral part of videogames. The thing is, though, that when 'looking good' becomes the main focus, and throws substance out of the window in the process, things tend to start leaning towards the disappointing side of the scale; and that's the problem with The Deadly Tower of Monsters. While far - very far in fact - from being a terrible piece of software, without the B-Movie aesthetics and the funny narration from the Director and his unfortunate audio technician - which it nails - this is just an action game, and an average one at that.
The Deadly Tower of Monsters is a fleeting experience, but one that no B-movie fan should go without. I have a few issues with the loot and upgrade systems (namely in that they feel superfluous), but as a straight action game, it mostly succeeds in what it sets out to do.
The Deadly Tower of Monsters is not the tightest 3D hack-and-blast arcade homage you'll ever play, but it is the only one to feature puppies dressed as deadly hoovers, amazing stop-motion dinosaurs, and set design to rival Forbidden Planet.
The Deadly Tower of Monsters is the latest in ACE Team's Ghastly Menagerie of Interactive Curiosities. Inventive ideas with perspective and the concept of ascending a lavishly decorated outdoor tower put some distance between The Deadly Tower of Monsters and genre conventions, but, really, it's not why you're here. You came for an ambitious descent into Chilean pandemonium and this game holistically satisfies that urgency.