Twisted Tower Review (PC)

“STEP RIGHT UP! STEP RIGHT UP!” The swankiest, cruelest, most devilishly disorienting carnival haunt has just arrived in town for one reason: to board you on a ghost train to a mascot-filled, whack-a-mole-encumbered world of big top-inspired nightmares. Twisted Tower, a first-person horror-shooter hybrid with rich BioShock elements, is vying to bring Disney World to the pits in an all-new, visually intoxicating love letter to psychological corridor shooters. It’s bleak, it’s bonkers, and it’s well worth the ticket stub.

Twisted Tower keeps its plot above board with an old-fashioned cliche, with an emphasis on a damsel in distress, an unlikely hero, and a gargantuan plinth of fabric and stone, questionably dubious mascots and fifties-inspired decor. With the hero in question—a position that you happen to fall into naturally—in play, the game invites you to stamp your ticket, claim your mallet, and make a desperate attempt to climb through the claustrophobic quarters of its clown-laced tower. There are sadistic mascots to chomp through, light environmental puzzles to solve, and various tools and oddly creative weapons to unlock. All in all, then, a pretty belt-and-braces shooter — but with mascots and a lingering sense of dread that you’d typically find aboard a derelict ghost train in the mid fifties.

It didn’t take all that long for me to fall into Twisted Tower’s carnivorous carnival and to start peppering rubber bullets and fart-fueled pellets at huggable foes. Without thinking twice about the consequences, I fell into the fly trap and soon began to thread the needle. Someone (and I didn’t care who it was at that point) was in dire need of a last-minute rescue, and I, being in the presence of a bubblegum-flouncing chain-gun, was more than willing to oblige and take the risk. Five layers stood before me—a hotel, a waterpark, a clown casino, a forest, and a space station, naturally—and all that kept me from reaching an old flame was a ragtag band of mischievous “performers.” All I had to do was bite the bullet and slaughter a few killer clowns.

Truth be told, I was immediately sold on the concept. Blended with a BioShock-like combat system, a Walt Disney-inspired setting, and a surprisingly unnerving atmosphere, Twisted Tower quickly grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and invited me inside. The tools were ridiculous, and the world was outrageous. But, it didn’t need to convince me to load up on bubblegum and pledge to the ascent. Weirdly, I was already there. Like a spring-loaded jack-in-the-box, it wound its key and promised me that, If I was able to stick around for the jump scare, it would deliver a bittersweet tale of blood and gristle, vengeance and nostalgia. I was all for it. I only needed to board the cart to see where it would take me.

Like a rollercoaster with a staggering amount of loops, vertical drops, and corkscrews, Twisted Tower didn’t hold back on the hypersonic trajectories. In moments, it handed me a whack-a-mole mallet, a clear goal, and a handful of tickets that I could use to unlock greater opportunities in the park. With enough tickets, I could enhance my firepower, earn passive upgrades, and elevate my combat skills to a gold standard. Between frequent visits to the local merchants, I could sink my teeth into the ominous quarters of the monolithic pit—a world lost in time and under the influence of a cruel, sadistic, and disturbingly creative puppeteer. Bullets would fly, and creepy mascots would swarm the tower, and for all the while the tower would spit out new obstacles for me to clamber over, I’d happily fasten on my climbing gear and brave the feats.

Twisted Tower doesn’t hold back on its homages to the classic horror-shooter hybrid field. With a cocktail of high-octane combat, well-paced plot-building, and a seasoning of brilliantly crafted characters, biomes, and bittersweet crescendos, it gracefully takes the bull by the horns and rolls with it, all whilst forming its own backbone and identity. With some great visuals, story beats, battles, and psychological side effects, the game doesn’t just feel like a cheap imitation of a cult classic, but a meticulously designed successor that knocks on all of the right doors and checks all of the right boxes.

While mascot horrors are surprisingly difficult to rebuild from the ground up, Twisted Tower does hold its own as a fantastic game that is not only memorable and unforgivingly engaging, but mechanically sound, visually striking, and above all, a great deal of fun to carve through. It doesn’t have that cheap feel to it, is what I’m trying to say here. On the contrary, it flaunts its colors as a complete composition, which in turn makes you want to stick around for the long haul and see what else it has to offer. It might have that buttery BioShock flavor to it, but to call it a direct copycat of a former favorite just wouldn’t be true in this case.

There’s a tremendous amount of evidence as to why mascot horrors are among the most prevalent in the field, and frankly, Twisted Tower illuminates that fact in more ways than one. As niche as it might be, it pulls on all of the right strings to create an impactful effect on the audience. To that end I’d say that, if you are on the hunt for a quirky thrill ride that can get your blood pumping and your heart racing for a while, then you honestly needn’t look any further than the ticket booth in this psychologically charged carnival.

Verdict

Twisted Tower takes a fifties-inspired carnival to the pinnacle of the big top with a visually intoxicating, systematically engaging, and absurdly bombastic thrill ride that has all of the qualities of a genuinely riveting slideshow attraction. With five unique layers, troves upon troves of enigmatic mascots, and an immersive combat system that feels great and fulfills the need for something weird and wonderful, both Atmos Games and 3D Realms deliver a brilliantly crafted experience that is more than likely going to attract both avid thrill seekers and whack-a-mole fans alike.