The Tower

I really hate to do this, but I'm writing a review despite not finishing it. It's not something I usually do, and I always say that a game should be finished before a review is written, but here I am. However, there is a good reason to why I did not finish this which I'll share with you guys. So before getting into why I didn't finish it, I would like to talk about the actual game and what I've seen. The intro was good. It had good graphics, and had atmosphere building up. But that's it. It's too dark to see anything, heck I had to turn my brightness to maximum at times. The voice acting was really hard to understand, and there are no subtitles. After that, I got up to the first soldier, and died. This is when I had to quit. The load option did not work, and when I tried to quit the game it gave me a bluescreen. I tried to fix the issues for atleast 10 minutes and then finally noticed to reboot my computer. The menu system is so buggy, you can not turn of fullscreen either. Sorry for the short review. I really hate to do this, but I just cannot recommend it. I'm getting a refund.

One of the worst games I have ever played. The main character won't shut up and keep talking and talking. That completely kills the feeling of terror and immersion horror games usually give. And.... no subtitles! The store page says it has subtitles. I couldn't find it anywhere. The gameplay is not good especially the level design. I ran into so many invisible walls and had to stop playing completely when I couldn't proceed to anywhere else because of an invisible wall. The controls are mediocre at best. Just don't buy. Utter garbage. 0 out of 10

Worst. Game. Ever.

So I found this game when it was on desura is an alpha state (it was also in steam greenlight at that time). I thought it looked really cool so I picked it up for three dollars. At that point, it looked like NM was actually putting out content for this game, and were looking at feedback found on the forum (which was minimal). They put out one major update and added a little chapter, know by many as the laggy garden chapter. That was Aug 21 2012. Then a few months after that I got a messages from Dante asking me if would beta test Polarium, a new game they were working on. I thought it was odd they were not going to work on The Tower, but as I found out Polarium was going to be on Xbox live Arcade. I know that sometimes you have to take funding where you can get it. So I thought maybe after they finish Polarium and get more money they would finish The Tower. Well after testing and sending my feedback on Polarium, everything went quite for a while. Then out of the blue I saw Dante has posted that there was a Kickstarter (or indigogo, I don't remember) for The Tower. Again I thought this was odd because I thought they would have more funding. I backed this though because I really like this project (granted this was a mistake on my end, not learning from the past). I was following the steam discussions on the game and NM was giving out keys for people to play test it. I said I would love to help (again me being a moron). They sent me a key... and it did not work. So I posted that my key did not work. I didn't hear anything back and didn't see anything more posted from NM. It seemed the game was dead again. With this whole Tower issue out of my mind, and me counting the game as a loss (which was a disappointment to me, and still is because the IDEA is great) I saw this private eye game on steam called Sam Glyph: Private Eye! (I'm a sucker for a detective Noir theme). At first Glance it looked interesting, so I scrolled down the page... then I saw it's developer was NM. I took a pass because from what I knew of them, and the posts in the comments it sounded like another unfinished game. I did happened to buy it when it was on sale for a dollar so later. I played it, and again, the idea is interesting, but I was correct, it is just another unfinished game. Again I pushed NM out of my mind, and tried to forget them. Then one day I noticed that Dante had posted another crowdfunding project for The Tower (again I can't remember which one). I laughed and told myself I wanted to back this and help the project, but they lost my trust long ago, and it seemed like they were nowhere near reaching their goal. So I brushed this off and went on with my life. Then today I just happen to notice that The Tower was fully released on steam and I had it in my library. I played it, and it was different than the old game. New engine and voice acting and story. The idea seemed to be the game (which I still think is a good idea). The game looks ok and runs better than in the past. Though the game right now, just seems to be walk ten steps and have a dialog part where you do not feel engaged and feel bored about. Sadly as Tryyton says in this review of the game, it seems NM is just trying to scam our money and I have been a sucker more times than I should have. Don't buy this game, don't buy any of NM games, they are just unfinished. Also there is this... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1094973/Musician-barred-selling-soul-eBay.html (Also sharing this link in no way condones my support of the DailyMail)

Disclaimer: This game was received as part of a challenge among friends. Anyone thinking to pick up this little gem should pay extra special attention to a line in the description. “The Tower features an unforgiving and permanent death system.“ That statement is 100% correct! How does it accomplish this feat? By having a save system that is utterly broken! That’s right, you can save your game at a lantern, but any death (and *spoiler alert* a chance at one is approaching seconds later) brings you right back to the title screen… where the load button is greyed out. Hitting “New Game” will helpfully tell you that it will overwrite your previous save, but it certainly doesn’t seem to understand that one exists to load it. Other than the broken save function, the rest of the game seemed passable. Graphically, it looks fine, when you can actually see what’s happening. Don’t trust the brightness settings as it starts – there are sequences where it is almost too dark to see. The atmosphere doesn’t really get a chance to get going, due to Elliot spending a large portion of the time speaking. And as far as the actual gameplay, the early portion is marked with long stretches of non-interactive clips. And with no indicators as to whether or not something is actively dangerous, prepare to die with seemingly no warning. I don’t like giving up on a game too quickly, but after dying immediately after the initial save point once, I was a bit frustrated. Having to replay the entire sequence leading up to it, just to get another attempt to succeed was not fun. Dying to a different event, just a moment after completing that sequence successfully, has me walking away from The Tower.

This thing came out of Early Access incomplete. Several times it has been stated it would be worked on again, etc. At one point there was even an attempt to sell pre-alpha access to a 2015 updated version (they eventually just gave said access away supposedly). Still no proper updates, the game is barely a few minutes long. Game is still incomplete., Still very broken. Here is a fun example, pausing multiple times during play, sometimes the mouse will stop responding and thus you'll be unable to exit the pause menu. Workaround, hit ESC to close the menu (notice mouse movement still works) or if you actually need to do something on the menu, ALT+TAB out of the game, then back in, then use the mouse to select menu items. There are many more examples of things broken in this game. Then there are issues with presentation, such as the fact there are baked into your eyes apparently, lens flare, dirt, blood, and film grain. These spots never change position or angle and are always in view as though a permanent part of your eyes. The whole thing is a wonky broken mess.

Absolute ♥♥♥♥. I died and then I had to start the game again from the beginning. However once I died and clicked new game a message box popped up saying overwrite old game, despite me not being able to load an old game as that option was greyed out, but it only popped up for half a second. So to start a new game I had quit to desktop and relaunch. This game is bollocks. TL;DR This is what AIDS would be if it were a video game.

Ich finde dieses Spiel extrem Scheiße, deswegen ist es Perfekt um einen "Freund" zu ärgern. So wurde auch ich mit diesem Spiel geärgert. Also empfehle ich euch dieses Spiel um einem Freund mal so richtig eine auszuwischen. Viel Spaß mit unmöglichen Leveln und dem größten Dreck auf Erden.

Lots of promise, but ultimately fails. Movement is stifled by poor hitboxes on surrounding terrain. Too many invisible walls. Sound effects often cover up the dialog. Mouse constantly escapes the game window. Mouse locks when entering escape menu (have to alt tab out and back in).

DO NOT GET THIS WASTE OF MONEY Dont get me wrong, from what i did see and experience from this game was beautiful. I played for about maybe 5 - 10 minutes. NOT by choice. I played these few minutes just to have a huge bug attack, i checked on the forums to find out how to fix this or if the developers would release a patch to correct it. Only to discover that they stopped developing the game... How can you release an incomplete bugging game FOR SALE and not finish it. Honestly, if I could I'd get a refund. It is only 3 dollars, but its still a waste of money and not even worth that.