The Deadly Tower of Monsters

The conceit behind The Deadly Tower of Monsters is that you're playing through a DVD re-issue of a terrible sci-fi B-movie, with the director providing a running commentary for the DVD extras. The audience is fully aware of how obviously terrible the film is, and yet the director is blissfully, painfully unaware, believing his film to be a visionary work of genius. If you're familiar with British comedy, one particular alarm has already started ringing in your head just from that description, just as it did for me when I started playing this; if there's a single member of ACE Team that doesn't own a well-worn DVD of Garth Merenghi's Darkplace, I'd be astonished.

It's a comparison that flatters this game, if I'm being honest - it's never as clever or as funny as Matthew Holness is, and doesn't dig its claws quite as deep into the material it's mocking - but there's no great shame in not matching those high standards. The bigger problem is with how this knowing, winking idea that the audience is in on the joke of how terrible something is works in a video game format, when the dynamic between the product and the consumer is so radically different from films, TV, or music.

Think of it this way. If you're listening to a 'so-bad-its-good' album, then just about anything it can possibly do, whether it's instruments being out of tune, the drummer not being able to keep time, the lyrics being cringeworthy, or the production being amateurish, can be absorbed into that 'so-bad-its-good' ideal. There is nothing that music does that you can't claim isn't so bad it's good, if you really wanted to. It's the same with films; the script, acting, cinematography, make-up, props, all of it can be bad in a way that enhances the experience rather than detracts from it. But is the same really true of video games? Can a game that crashes constantly, has poor controls, has terrible hit detection, has an always-online requirement with unreliable servers, and bugs that corrupt your saves or make it impossible to finish the game ever really be 'so bad it's good'? Or does all that just make a game irredeemably shit?

Everything about this game is pretty great, aside from the core mechanics.

The storytelling is hilarious (and the narration is a brilliant addition), the visuals are in a great style, the characters are fun, and the level design is good for what it is. But the actual game, and the combat, is pretty boring. I didn't love it. I wanted to love it, but it's just not fun. It's a great idea though.