The Deadly Tower of Monsters Review (PC)

  Comedy is incredibly difficult to pull off in a video game. Most gags rely on precise, directed timing, and taking control away from a player in an interactive medium usually results in a bad game, frustration, and few laughs in the process. Through clever narration, smart satire, and an unflinching 100% commitment to it's jokes, The Deadly Tower of Monsters plastered a perma-grin across my face for my entire playtime. It's an entertaining, creative hack n' slash puzzle/platformer to boot.

  Your ultimate goal in The Deadly Tower of Monsters is to climb the deadly tower of monsters. Standing underneath the imposing structure and looking skyward (or taking a peek at the map) gives the deflating feeling that you're in for a near impossible test of will and patience. Once you take a few steps toward that journey, however, it becomes clear that many design decisions are in place to keep player convenience at the forefront. Fall off a ledge? Press “LB” and you're right back to solid ground, no penalty incurred. Getting lost? Pull up the map and you can warp to any point in the tower you've previously visited at will. (Protip: go up.) This isn't some hardcore, griefing, reflex litmus test. That wouldn't be funny. You're encouraged to fall, explore, and generally just have a good time in the campy sandbox, and you should take the game up on that offer.

  On the base level the game reminds me of console-centric action/RPGs like Marvel: Ultimate Alliance or Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. From an overhead view you have a standard melee attack which can be charged for a heavy attack, and a ranged weapon. As you progress you gain access to about a dozen different kinds of both types of weapons, and these can be upgraded by collecting components dropped by enemies or scattered around the environments. There are also perks like max HP increases, regenerating health, improved melee/ranged damage, etc. that can be earned by completing missions (main quests or side activities). You can swap between three different characters that have some unique skills needed to access certain areas, so there's also a bit of Metroidvania going on here.  Other options include the ability to parry attacks, extend your jumps with a jetpack, and shoot downward when near a ledge (that one good feature of Dark Void). It all adds up to a surprising amount of depth in a fairly short, decidedly goofy comedy game.

  Even the title screen of The Deadly Tower of Monsters is full of jokes. Upon booting the game, you're immediately greeted by a narrator who is “in studio” to record a commentary track for a truly awful Sci-Fi B-movie he made some years back, and he's going to be cringe-worthingly candid and let it be know just how much of scumbag he is. You're greeted at the start with a fairly typical though beautiful movie poster of the movie, where a 50's Hollywood space man is cradling an attractive, unconscious woman. The director remarks how proud he is of the poster. Boot the game up a second time, and the gender roles are swapped, with the woman rescuing the man. “I didn't approve of this change”, the director protests. His assistant chimes in to inform him that the studio execs shot an alternate take, foreseeing a future demographic where swapping the sexes would appeal to the masses. That's some pretty poignant and fucking funny social commentary. Not content to stop there, an alternate title screen shows a robot holding the man instead... for the future robot demographic.

  I debated whether or not to spoil the above gag, but the riffs are just so nonstop throughout the game that it's a small drop in a large pond of punchlines. You're controlling the “movie”, the perfectly voiced director is giving behind-the-scenes anecdotes nearly the entire time in rapid fire fashion akin to the densest, snappiest of MST3K episodes. This is more than fitting since the movie in question would feel right at home in a crappy Mystery Science Theater show: dinosaurs are convincingly stop motion animated, bats are held aloft by visible strings, nothing is shown that couldn't be created with practical effects from that era which usually means men in rubber suits. There's even more than a few cameos from (in)famous(ly bad) real movie monsters. Every environment and creature is lovingly crafted from people who are clearly fans of the genre, and the affection for the movies we love and love to make fun of is sincere and hilarious.

  I'm not usually a fan of “meta” comedy, but The Deadly Tower of Monsters is so out there it absolutely worked for me on every level. The DVD commentary presentation is excellent, and it breaks the fourth (and sometimes fifth) wall with such reckless abandon you just have to laugh. From a pure game perspective it's completely solid with enough fresh ideas to be enjoyable on it's own, but smiling and giggling like an idiot while playing elevates it to a must play game. It's one of the best surprises I've encountered in a long time.