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I love single-player shooters. I love them so much that at some point in my gaming life, I refused to play any other games. If a game was an FPS, it had my approval; if not, it was a hard pass for me. Whenever a new shooter appeared, I simply had to play it, and I will admit it now, loud and clear, I played so many of them, even too many for my own good. Many were good games; some were garbage, but in 2008, when I stumbled upon BioShock for the first time, I totally fell in love. Up until that moment, and even to this day, no better shooter has graced us with its presence, in my humble opinion.
Apart from two sequels I normally played the living hell out of, I failed to find any game that managed to stir that same feeling BioShock did so many years ago, until recently, when, out of the blue, Twisted Tower's key hit my inbox. From the very first moment when the game gave me the controls, I knew that this was it: this was the game I'd been waiting for.
A rescue mission with real stakes
The premise of Twisted Tower's story is so simple, yet it cuts so deep, and that's exactly the way BioShock set things back in the day. Of course, comparisons to BioShock are inevitable here. Still, I will try to avoid them as much as possible because Twisted Tower is a good game on its own, without needing to compare it to this masterpiece.
Speaking of the premise, you play as Vincent, a guy who is with his fiancée, Charlotte, on a romantic date. They are watching Twisted Tower, a new movie in the theatre everyone talks about. After the movie, and after a short period of amnesia, Charlotte is nowhere to be found, and Vincent gets a message from no one other than the movie's director, The Twister. Charlotte is kidnapped, and Vincent must go into the amusement park, made exactly after the movie, if he wants to see the love of his life alive ever again.
Vincent isn't the knight in shining armour and will not run into the rescue headfirst. He is afraid too, afraid for the life of his fiancée but for his own well-being as well, and this is what gives this story real weight. He is just a regular guy, and the writers managed to portray that perfectly, a truly commendable feat even for an AAA title, let alone an indie game.
The tower itself tells a story of its own. The twisted mind of The Twister is something to be truly afraid of. His dialogues and the messages he leaves for Vincent on old black-and-white TVs gave me the chills all the time. Not in the way other horror games do, no. The Twister's words go into your subconscious and stay there to remind you that in every moment, he is the one who controls the game and pulls the strings here.
Twisted Tower's story is so much more than meets the eye and way deeper than you might realise. Apart from the clear premise and the plot you follow all the time, you'll run into many letters and newspaper articles that will completely mess with your head. At some point in the game, I didn't know what was real and what wasn't, and the game leaves you to draw your own conclusions right to the end. Seriously, Twisted Tower is so well-written that this story could throw down the gauntlet to many high-budget titles with ease.
Toy chest of terror
The gameplay follows a similar formula to the story, reinforcing the sense that something is seriously wrong with this place, and before Vincent starts to see it, the game hints at it all the time, even through its own strange mechanics.
Twisted Tower is a shooter, through and through, and when it comes to shooting mechanics, the devs hit the mark here. The shooting is a bit faster than in BioShock, but way slower than, say, in DOOM. Speed matters here, and since the enemy AI is quite generic and simple, positioning is the key to every encounter.
There are many enemy types, ranging from simple ones you can kill in a single hit to very tanky ones that will require several pistol clips or a full load of shotgun shells to drop. Speaking of weapons, you'll have many at your disposal, and since the game takes place during the nineteen fifties, expect guns from that era, with a twist.
Since you're inside the twisted tower, and everything is properly twisted and weird, the enemies and guns follow suit. Every enemy is some type of toy: stuffed teddy bears and giraffes, moving telephones that bite, or sirens made of plastic and rubber. Guns are toy-like as well, and since they're clearly reminiscent of real guns from that time yet are so obviously toys, the game keeps putting the same question in front of you: what is really going on here?
Real or not, every shot you fire feels real enough to blow everything in front of you, and where gameplay is concerned, that's what matters most. Apart from the firearms, you'll have a sledgehammer for melee combat too, and swinging it feels really good. Every weapon can be upgraded inside special vending machines scattered throughout the game (one more BioShock reference).
Apart from the guns, you'll find tools that help you traverse the tower, like a grappling hook or a dashing mechanism, so getting around the levels can sometimes feel like solving puzzles. The level design is quite linear, and you'll be required to find items, like keys and tokens, to progress. There's backtracking and revisiting levels as well, but essentially, you'll follow the beaten path, solving things as you go, and pushing towards your final goal.
Dated looks, timeless sound
The graphic presentation might be the weakest link in this whole chain called Twisted Tower, but that's alright. The game has its own charm and an art style that leans towards a hand-drawn, cartoonish look rather than photorealistic visuals. Even though visuals play a huge role for me personally, I somehow forgave Twisted Tower for looking worse than I'd wished it would.
The biggest problem with Twisted Tower's visuals is that the textures and environments generally look more dated than they do in today's games. The colours are also kind of washed out and blunt, and while the game's atmosphere calls for that kind of look, a slightly more vivid palette might have done the game some good.
Sound, especially the soundtrack, is a different story entirely and out of this world, again very reminiscent of BioShock. Songs from the fifties play constantly in the background, and they're excellent tracks. The voice acting is also very good, especially from the actor who portrays The Twister, while the environmental sound elevates the atmosphere and keeps the tension running throughout.
As for performance, I have zero complaints, which was to be expected given the game isn't demanding at all; even some older rigs should run it without issue. On native 2K ultrawide resolution with everything maxed out, the frame rate stayed well above 120 the entire time.
Verdict
Twisted Tower isn't trying to hide who its big brother is, and it doesn't need to. What it borrows from BioShock, it borrows well: a similar unsettling setting, a villain who's keeping you on your toes the whole time while playing the game, and gunplay with enough weight to make every encounter matter. What it does on its own terms, a hero who fights for someone he loves, including himself, a toy box of an arsenal that turns horror into something stranger and sadder, works even better.
It isn't a perfect game. The visuals feel like they are from two console generations behind, and the linear path through the tower makes the game way simpler than it could be. But none of that got in the way of the five hours I spent completely hooked, waiting to find out what was real and what wasn't, right up to the final door. This is the closest a shooter has come to making me feel the way BioShock did in 2008, and for me, that's more than enough to put this small indie next to some all-time classics on my list of favourite games.
The Good
A rescue-mission story with real emotional weight- Confident, satisfying gunplay
- A wonderfully twisted toy-box arsenal and enemy design
- Standout, BioShock-indebted sound design and voice acting
- Rock-solid, demanding-nothing performance
The Bad
Dated textures and a washed-out colour palette- Fairly linear level design
