Tower Toppler - Atari 7800

Good God, this game is difficult. The terrible 7800 controller doesn't help, but even accounting for that random deaths and frustrating cheapshots are the order of the day.

You're a green alien who lives underwater in a polluted ocean (or something, I forget) and you have to destroy an assortment of towers filled with nasties - presumably this turns the sky blue and rainbows shoot out of your butt in the process. To destroy the towers, you have to make your way past the bad guys and leap over crumbling floors, slippy platforms and indestructible "thingies" that knock you back down the tower (which isn't good, as you're playing against a time limit). Apparently, you're a demolitions expert which is good - but who on Earth ever heard of someone blowing up a tower anywhere other than the base?

Makes. No. Sense.

Anyway, getting to the top of the very first tower was an exercise in yelling at the TV while grumbling about how everything must have been "the controllers fault". The slightest mistake can knock you back down the tower, bits of flooring simply vanish underneath you and often you'll pop out of a doorway, only to immediately be hit by a floating blob thing that randomly floats around the tower.

The graphics are pretty amazing, and the whole tower sort of rotates around you as you climb the various levels. Unfortunately, many sections of the tower aren't distinctive enough, and you often walk off ledges because you thought there was floor underneath you. A bonus level has you shooting fish in your submarine - completely pointless, but the multi-layered background that scrolls behind you is pretty amazing.

You can apparently tackle the towers in any order, but after dying horribly on level 2 about a hundred times, I have no desire to go any further.

If you can put up with the frustrations heaped upon you by this game, you'll probably enjoy it. For everyone else, think twice...

Score: 2.5 / 5