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Nowadays, there’s plenty of roguelike first-person shooters to pick from but not all players enjoy the procedurally generated aspect. As my friend would say, “I hate randomized bullshit”. I am not one of these people. I like games with randomized elements. I like the idea that every playthrough is different. Granted, this design isn’t always perfect but I do like the concept and many games do it well. Tower of Guns is a roguelike shooter and I bought it years ago around the time it came out, back when I was really getting into the genre. I was initially going to play Mothergunship which is from the same developer but after hearing that it could be considered a spiritual successor to Tower of Guns, I figured I would just play Tower first. Developed and published by Terrible Posture Games, Tower of Guns released for PC in March, 2014 and PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in April, 2015. For this review, I played the PC version.
There are silly storylines conveyed through dialogue in text form between characters during gameplay. The characters and dialogue will change from run to run. In other words, the plot will be different for each run. Ultimately, the story takes a back seat to the gameplay. It has no real impact on anything. In fact, the dialogue can be turned off. As the name of the game implies, the setting is a tower filled with various guns and your objective is to ascend to the top and bring the whole thing down.
Before starting a run, you can select your primary weapon and a perk. In the beginning, you’re not given many weapons or perks but you unlock more by meeting certain requirements. Most perks offer a bonus of some kind and some even alter the difficulty. You can select one of numerous game modes that modify the gameplay in some capacity and you’re given the option to enable Endless mode where you simply keep going until you die. With the amount of game modes, guns, and perks to select from, there’s no shortage of ways to experience the gameplay and mix things up. Experimentation and trying new things is all part of the fun.
The gun you pick before starting the run will be your only weapon unless you find more in the stages. You never have to worry about running out of ammo or reloading. On the surface, the gameplay is simple; run through areas and shoot all the enemies. The game plays out in stages, each consisting of multiple areas or rooms and ending with a boss. You enter a room, shoot the enemies that appear and locate the door to the next room, and keep doing this until you reach the boss. Defeat the boss to progress to the next stage and rinse and repeat until you beat the game. That’s the gist of it. And on your journey, you can acquire badges, items, guns, and gun mods among other pickups that will help you out.
Badges are powerups that will permanently affect the current run. Most of them are beneficial, typically improving one of your abilities, but some can make things more challenging. Items can also be considered powerups in a way and must be activated manually but you can only equip one at a time. It will then need to recharge before it can be used again. Then there’s Gun Mods which will change your gun’s behavior in some way and your gun can only have one equipped. The powerups and gun mods can really change how you approach situations. Throw in the different game modes and perks, and randomized elements, and the game gives you plenty of reasons to return. No run will ever be the same. It doesn’t matter if you bring the tower down or die, all these options make it fun and addictive to jump back in and see how things will play out and what you’ll get.
Tower of Guns is not a gory game. Enemies are guns and robots of some kind. Turrets, cannons, flying tanks, sawblade launchers, and other similar types make up the enemy roster. When you enter a room and even reach certain areas within a room, enemies will spawn in and immediately start attacking. You’ll have to run, jump, and strafe to avoid projectiles coming from every which way. There’s also an impressive amount of bosses. The action can get fast-paced and intense and gun mods and many badges can really help alleviate some of the challenge. When you defeat enemies, they drop pickups like coins, health orbs, item charge orbs, weapon experience, and sometimes badges. After collecting enough experience, your weapon levels up and becomes more efficient. However, taking enough damage can lower a weapon’s experience and level. Coins or money can be spent on powerups and guns at what I’m calling shops found in the stages.
One thing I really like about Tower of Guns is that every weapon feels useful. Throw in the gun mods and weapon levels and each one can become beastly. For a game all about guns and shooting, I’m happy to say the gunplay does feel good. Every weapon feels distinct and the visual effects and feedback of each one help make them feel satisfying. I do wish the audio work was a little better, though. I think the game could use some more punchy sounds for weapons fire among other things in general but what’s here does get the job done. Enemies will flash when they start running low on health and eventually explode which does look cool.
The enemies, rooms, and things that will spawn are randomized every run. Despite that, it appears the room layouts are not actually randomized, just the rooms. That means you’ll visit the same rooms often across multiple runs. The benefit of this is secrets will always be in the same place and they are worth finding. Many contain coins and pickups that are worth collecting and if playing in the Normal game mode, you want to stock up on extra jump and increased jump height badges because many secrets will require you to reach locations not accessible with a single jump and the starting jumping height. It should be noted that badge benefits stack. If you turn on the Endless mode, you will simply keep going after finishing the final stage and the powerups you’ve collected do carry over so after a while you’ll be really powerful, fast, and able to jump to ridiculous heights. There are multiple stage types, including hidden stages, and each one does feel distinct. Some rooms are more vertical than others, there are hazards to avoid like lava and spikes, and you can utilize things like teleporters and cubes to reach certain locations.
Tower of Guns showcases an art style with personality and the presentation does look and feel unique. It’s colorful, almost cartoony, and it’s got an industrial look to it. I would say environments kind of look dirty and grimy and it all works and fits the theme of the game. The silly dialogue and stories add a layer of humor and that coupled with the presentation makes for a somewhat lighthearted experience. The action is backed by solid music with songs that really help drive the atmosphere. As for the sound work, as I mentioned before, I do feel some weapons could sound punchier and some explosions could sound better as well in my opinion. Other than that, the audiovisual presentation is good. On the technical side, I’m happy to say I encountered no major issues.
I had a really good time with Tower of Guns. There’s plenty of ways to experience the gameplay and it’s all good fun. With numerous game modes, multiple perks, badges and gun mods, and randomized elements, there’s plenty of reasons to keep coming back and that’s what I did. The gameplay is fun and I find experimenting to be addictive. It’s not a long game. You can get through all the stages in a single sitting and it does put up a good challenge. But it’s also accessible. With the TooYoungToDie perk basically equating to an Easy difficulty, anyone can get through this. I do wish the audio work received more attention but what’s here is fine and the presentation as a whole feels very unique. Ultimately, I found the game to be very enjoyable. Whenever I stop playing and think I’m done, I always end up coming back. It’s that kind of game.
I absolutely recommend Tower of Guns. It’s not my favorite shooter of all time but it is a great game in the roguelike genre. It offers fun gameplay, a good amount of content, plenty to unlock, and the replay value is high. It’s easy to pick up and play, can be enjoyed in short bursts or long sessions, it’s both accessible and challenging, and every run feels different. Definitely check it out.