Early last month we first heard that developer Yoot Saito had plans to bring The Tower to the iPad. Saito is a Japanese game designer who is responsible for both SimTower and Yoot Tower (also known as The Tower II in Japan) as well as Seaman, a virtual pet game of sorts that focused on voice recognition for the Sega Dreamcast. The Tower games focus on building a skyscraper with all sorts of different facilities in it while providing as good of a living experience for the residents inside of it as possible. If you’ve never played the game before, think of it basically as a vertical Sim City.
The Tower for iPad [¥450] was just released on the Japanese App Store, and there are plans for an international English version soon. Judging by the below screenshots, quite a bit of the game is in Japanese. You could jump through some hoops to register a Japanese App Store account and figure out how to fund it with yen, but unless you speak some Japanese you’re likely going to be fairly lost when it comes to actually playing.
As a huge fan of the original SimTower, I really can’t wait for The Tower to get an English translation and show up for download in the US App Store. If you played the original game, it’s really not hard to imagine how well it would work with touch controls, as evident from the following gameplay video:
I’ve sent off an email to the developers to determine how soon they expect the English version to be released, and of course when it finally appears expect to see a full review.
Japanese App Store Link: The Tower
The controls aren't terrible by any means. Touch any where to shoot there, left and right arrows control direction you move and the direction of tilt while in air.
Also it really isn't as much a novelty app as envirobear. It has real gameplay and overcoming the physics of the hills is incredibly fun.
I love this game. It's perfect and so recognizable and an easy any kind of moment during the day game
I've always played Oregon Trail like this...
The gun shots sound effects remind me of Defender or Robotron.... I have to get this... loving that my iPad-Phone4 has become the units of choice for retro style games for the current gen. A lot of older console owners who grew up in the 80's complained when most 2D went 3D - but now we are getting our fix from our i-devices (I know the Gears of War and Halo folk are stabbing their eyes right now reading this).
" The ridiculousness of the game's premise was matched only by the terrible controls and even worse pixel"
Didn't need to read any further. I don't play games because they 'ironic' or whatever the justification is.
Maybe some day you will get a since of humor :( Or any human emotions at all.
I have a great sense of humor. This doesn't look funny at all.
Your human emotions line is just wacky, you say this because some doesn't like a certain game? Are you 4 years old? If so it may explain why you like this game I suppose.
It isn't a bad game at all. This is just a bad review IMO. Reading the review it looks like Hodapp didn't even know how to play it. This actually is not like EnviroBear with bad controls and gameplay but instead hard to master physics and rewarding gameplay.
It really is a fun game and playing the pc version does no justice to the iphone version.
I agree the game is a lot of fun but I don't know how you could call the controls good at all.
The left and right to move and control which way the wagon(or car) tilts in midair is easy. Just hard too master the physics.
The way you describes it in the review it seemed that you only used the left arrow the whole time in which it would suck to play. Unless you feel controls suck for another reason.
I agree with Beast that the controls are fine, it's the physics that makes things tough (but really not that tough). I think it actually takes a lot of skill to hold the left arrow the whole time you're on a hill, release it the moment you fly into the air, and then use both arrows to balance the wagon and land flat.
The game really isn't that hard, I think I got to El Dorado on my second try, and then El Dorado and back on my third try. Once you go to El Dorado and back, you can actually bet on the menu items(!?) using the gold. I thought that was a pretty sweet easter egg.
Um. You know that quote was about Enviro Bear, not this game, right? This game is a real, playable game, with decent controls and some neat gameplay mechanics. Well worth playing.
The "Historic Oregon Trail" mode is pure awesome, it's a race between you and 20 other wagons.
I don't think the reviewer knows whether they like it or not.
They write 'masterpiece' in the title, but then in the actual review pretty much say it sucks.
Cool story bro.
If you read the entire review it's obvious the word masterpiece was being used in sarcasm.
That would mean it should have quotes around it, or be in italics.
Sorry, but a grammatically correct/universally accepted way to convey sarcasm does not exist friend. Maybe on teh interwebs qoutes or italics work, but it is not necessary in professional writing. Honestly, indicating sarcasm is along the lines of using a sitcom laughtrack. But some people just need to be told when to laugh I guess. On that note, this game totally "sucks."
instant buy, kthxbye.
I think on occasion Eli likes to test his degree of influence on the iPhone gaming public by hyping mediocre or below average games to see if he can jack up sales. Humor aside, this doesn't deserve front page coverage.
I would say being the follow up release from the dev of one of the most popular and talked about games from last year qualifies it for front page coverage, whether you or anybody else thinks it's a good game or not.
I happen to think it's an incredibly fun and unique game to boot.
I agree with that. I have been burned by some of the reviews posted here in the past and then later I realized that I have never seen a bad review in here. At most you will see something like "this is a must buy if you like this specific type of gameplay."
So I no longer pay attention to the reviews. I skip directly to the video or the forum to help me make my own decision.
"Humor aside?" It's pretty damn clear in the review that the point of this game is to be funny, and in that it succeeds. If that doesn't appeal to you, move the hell on, don't whine about how this site isn't catering to your humorless ass.
Perhaps you don't have that kind of sense of humor, and humor is subjective so there's no , but there's room. You don't have to like, or buy, every game featured on the front page.
As I've said before, if you can't make a point without a certain level of civility, it points to a poor upbringing and at the least, a sign of immaturity. Again, it just was my opinion.
Wow, your lack of civility is pretty telling.
instabuy
HerpDerp was spot on. Your lack of understanding for even the most basic humor is baffling.
this was meant to be a reply to mardas pye obviously.
Haha, good point.
Unfortunately, it looks like OpenFeint is breaking this game right now. Hopefully they fix it soon.