Rising To The Top: Tower Of Guns Brings That Old School Cool

I died a dozen times before beating the “final” boss and completing Tower of Guns. Now, usually, that amount of deaths in a campaign of a first-person shooter wouldn’t be bad at all, but in Tower of Guns, that was a dozen times too many. You see, this shooter has roguelike qualities – in that if you die, you have to restart from the very beginning, and every part of the game has some degree of randomisation.

It shares those qualities with another game – The Binding of Isaac – which I poured hours and hours into, attempting to properly complete it, and from an entire evening and night devoured by Tower of Guns, it seems it has the same kind of longevity. You might die in seconds or take upwards of an hour for that perfect run, but each time will be different from the last.

Tower of Guns is an inherently old-school affair, its brethren being shooter games of yore such as Quake and Doom. Hordes of enemies will attack you at a time, but there’s no taking cover here; it’s all about running and gunning, blasting those foes down and taking no prisoners.

It’s actually much more successful in many regards than other recent throwbacks, such as Duke Nukem Forever or the (substantially better than Duke Nukem) Wolfenstein: The New Order. Everything aside from the fact that you’ll be asked to press Options on PS4 instead of pressing the Start button feels like a throwback in some way or another.

Yet, at the same time, it manages to feel like something new. There’s just so much content and variety to experience here, and it feels like dozens of those games in one, with a lot of diversity to be found in the items, power-ups and various other upgrades that you’ll collect while climbing the Tower of Guns.

It’s a game which in no way takes itself seriously, straight from the first menu option which asks you to “choose a better gun” than the pre-selected starting pistol. While jokes are never forced, they are apparent with the optional story, which will be randomly selected at the start of each run. One time it’ll pit you as a “likeable thief”, displaying the text of a monologue as you talk to your dog, and another it’ll have you as an “80s gamer” who’s attempting to put commands into a text adventure.

This really matches the overall arcade feel of the game, which is wonderfully captured in almost every aspect. It feels delightfully throwaway, almost as if you’ll be asked to insert a coin upon death. That’s thanks to the procedural system, which also manages to make each playthrough feel unique in its execution. You’ll collect different power-ups each time, whether it’s more health, speed boosts or more jumps – I managed to get a quintuple jump by picking these up time and again.

It’s a shame that this doesn’t quite extend to the weapons. There’s still a decently varied selection, but a Borderlands-esque generation system would’ve really made the game a dream. That’s probably due to the game being developed by a single man, though, and the weapon modifiers you collect in-game – adding stun bullets, bouncing ammunition, or machine gun speed to name a few – is enough to get you by. You’ll also level up your weapon, collecting XP pick-ups as you go, turning it into an even more powerful one.

The enemies are randomised too, within a large roster of levels which have procedural elements to them. They’re all turrets and robots, part of the security system of the tower, but now and then you’ll see some flashes of ingenuity in foes such as the cauldron-like enemy which drops proximity bombs. Bosses have some degree of randomisation as well, though this mainly applies to when they appear and subsequent encounters with them will follow very similar attack patterns.

There’s a very smooth difficulty curve present as you climb the Tower of Guns, with you levelling up as the enemy hordes get gradually more powerful. Rooms will grow bigger and more complex as enemies grow in strength and in number, and you’ll find plenty of hidden areas – easter eggs, even – in these bigger rooms. Unfortunately, it begins to feel as though you’re fighting to stabilise the frame rate in these bigger fights – even on the PS4 version – as you truly discover what bullet hell means.

While the game is hardly the best looking thing out there, the cartoon-like patchwork aesthetic really works for the game. Tower of Guns is something old, something new, and something which will keep you coming back time and again as you discover new rooms, combinations, or just try to get to the end and beat that final, final boss.