Tower 57 Amiga Nextgen Review

If there is one game that you should get in 2017, then it’s not COD, GTA5 or even Super Mario! It is the Chaos Engine-inspired game named Tower 57.

Tower57 is a game worth all of your money? You may ask. It is out for AmigaOS 4, MorphOS, and AROS also including being available on Steam. 11bit Studios and Pixwerk present this brilliant game together and have created a beast of a game that will last for many hours. I would even go as far as saying as this is Game of the Year back in 2017 as it is a game that I still play today!

So! Let me introduce you pixel heaven!… This shooter is what you need in your daily life.

Everything in Tower 57 is as Expected from a Steampunk game

Yes! I must admit that my Amiga background sort of kicked a lot in this while writing this review. That’s because when I started and played Tower 57 for the first time. It gave me that Chaos Engine vibe from the beginning. But it wasn’t just that. It was the whole package that this game gave delivered to my gaming aging soul.

From the very first beginning, this game is presented in a beautifully pixeled graphics environment. There is no full-motion video, 3d animated movie, or something like that destroys a complete feeling. So, that’s a very good thing there. Tower 57, is presented in the same pixeled graphics form from the point when you start the game until you quit. This means quality to me. You simply don’t overjudge a gametitle by keeping the same style from start to finish. That’s why I love most of the Dreamcast games. They use the same 3D engine for the intro as the gameplay itself such as the remarkable Shenmue series.

The remarkable team behind Tower 57 at Alienware, is showing how amazingly talented they are in bringing pixeled graphics to modern operating systems like MorphOS, AmigaOS 4, and AROS. They also show that pixeled graphics WORKS back in 2017 and now! All of the animations, transactions, information to you as a player etc… It’s all presented in pixeled Chaos Engine graphics vibe to you. Which is brilliant.

Amazing steampunked action from start to end in Tower 57

The gameplay in Tower 57 is smooth which is the most important thing of any game. There are only some minor slowdowns on the weaker G4 CPU’s like the one on my iBook G4. On my PowerBook G4 1.64GHz the slowdowns are not to be seen. I guess that’s because of a better graphics card and also more VRAM, which the PowerPC Mac machines had way too little of.

Shooting in the game is done by using the mouse and the default controls is very alike Quake or other FPS with W, S, A and D keys used for steering your character. Choosing weapons is easy too, with the numeric keys on top of your keyboard. Then you also have special moves, which is done by pressing the C key. The F key is to interact with objects, people, and odd machines (no spoilers!!!…). You can also interact with different types of terminals and all of the money that you collect can be used to upgrade parts of your character. You also have options in reviving your dead characters and more, but this is for you to explore and find-out for yourself.

Right from the start, when you finally find your way to the first level and enter the sewers. The action begins! And it’s not really easy if you choose to play the game in Easy mode neither. But that is what makes this game challenging. When you have mastered the controls, Tower 57 will for sure reward you so much that in the end, it will not be too difficult, but actually quite easy and a joy of fun playing the game!

Brilliant Level Design In Tower 57

It’s not only the graphics and gameplay that have blown my mind while playing it for this review. It is also the fluid animations, amazing character design, Brilliant level design, and remarkable music that counts. The brilliant explosions effects put you in a nice mood too.

The amazing creature character design fits the Chaos Engine style sooo much and I love it. It is just incredible well done too. The characters you choose in the game also have different personalities and different weapons. They also have different strengths and abilities too. You really choose those characters that you love most, but you can also switch between them while playing.

Steampunked action that is Perfection

The steampunked theme in this game is amazing. The action is great and on top of that, the levels of the game got lots of variation. You can do them in various ways and so the game rewards you regarding the choices you make in the game. The level design is brilliant and clever. I like that. Very much!…

Also, there are so many hidden rooms in Tower 57. So, each time you try to play the game. You can expect to see new areas or see new places each new time you play. I just love this.

Tower 57 should be ported to Classic Amiga

This game is hard. It got all the vibe from Chaos Engine, but at the same time it doesn’t run on Classic Amiga??? Because this type of game wouldn’t run on it? Is Classic Amiga only 68000 computers with 1MB of RAM? No. Today we have accelerators with 68060 100MHz or with 68080 FPGA CPU’s. Also if this game was made with Chaos Engine type of engine it would work. Mini Metal Slug runs without issues on my Warped Amiga. This can be done and it’s just silly saying that this type of game wouldn’t work in PAL or in 320×240.

Tower 57 simply feels like a total action package that no other game of this type can match. MorphOS, which is the operating system that I’ve been playing on plays the game without issues on my PowerBook G4 1.64GHz machine. It is good that it is ported to the Nextgen Amiga platforms. It shows that the game is on our platform in a way. I feel however that like many modern games today for consoles and PC today. That such games as this should only be a few megs in size and NOT many hundreds of megabytes in-game data size.

This is for sure a well-made Chaos Engine-based game. It is a nice reason to get that adrenaline pumping! Tower 57 got no negative sides. Really none…! The lack of an original classic AmigaOS version of this game is obvious. I am not asking for a 68000 version! This action-packed game deserves to be released on the platform that it is based on. Releasing a 68030++ version of Tower 57 would be perfect, but that is not enough to degrade the score for the game. Tower 57 is fantastic and the MorphOS version of the game is brilliant.