Tower of Evil (Commodore C16/+4)

What on Earth am I doing, writing about this? Well, before I (or anyone I knew) got our Commodore 64s, one of our mates had a C16. When we weren't booting a footy around on the field outside his house, we were likely to be in his room, mucking about on his C16. Although having said that, I only really got to know him a short time before he got his 64, and so I didn't really get to play with the C16 much. I do remember, though, that one of the games he owned was called Tower of Evil, and I might have played it about twice, but it stuck with me and I really fancied giving it a shot, just to see what it was like. And hey, it's nice to bring in other systems.


That's it! The way to the next level. Just got to fight past the Pac-Man rejects...

So, what is it like? Well, it's like Atic Atac... or for me, Wizard's Lair (as you know, I had a C64 but not a Spectrum, so I've never played Atic Atac...). Anyway, it's a game where you have a large number of interconnected rooms that you have to explore. As is the tradition in these games, you have to find treasures while avoiding attacks from the resident monsters...

Considering it's a very early version of this type of game, it's quite interesting. Certain can give you temporary invincibility if picked up, or they might increase your firepower. Handy features, both. Teleport machines can be located around the tower, giving you access to other levels... but putting you at the mercy of other, different tower-dwelling critters.


Ugh. Seagulls. If only I could pick up some fish and chips, I could get rid of them.

It's simplistic stuff, for sure. The character you play is basically Berzerk's Evil Otto with arms and legs. Different levels are defined merely by different coloured walls and differently-shaped beasties. Oh, and as you progress to higher levels, they gather up the nerve to shoot back at you. How very dare they.

Tower of Evil is ancient in videogame terms, and nowadays it shows. It is what it is... there's no apparent variety to the gameplay, although maybe if you get far enough it changes (from my research, the Spectrum version has an extra bit that I imagine the C16/Plus 4 didn't have the memory for). It doesn't hold up particularly well now, although I did enjoy whizzing around from room to room... thankfully, everything moves at a fair clip. I'm glad I gave it a go, although I probably wouldn't choose to play it again... but I can easily imagine that if you bought this back in the day, you could think it was the best thing ever.