The Daily Click

::. ::.

Author:	*The* Chris Street
Added:	06/09/2007
Overall:
Average:	7.75/10

My first review here at TDC for many a long while, so what better game to choose than to take a look at Crystal Towers, by (Sir) David Newton?

I'll be blunt. The presentation of the game is pretty good. There's nothing amazingly wrong with it, but the graphical quality of the menus and game logo could really have been improved upon. There's a lot of content in the game, including a "game-lock" feature if you try and cheat by editing the INI file, and an extras page, detailing the reasoning behind the choice of levels in the game, as well as information on the upcoming sequel.

It's pretty good as I said, but nothing really stands out.

Now, when I first played this game I absolutely loved the idea behind it. Sprawling, go-where-you-choose style levels. A few years later and my opinion still stands. While the engine is a bit dodgy in places it does the job, but the nice level design really keeps you playing right until the very end.

Graphics are very average. But then again this is one of Davids first finished games that he's released in the community, and boy, has he improved since then. The graphics reflect their environments quite nicely, although some look too similar for my liking (ie, Bone Castle and Cryptic Catacombs look very similar) while the water stages don't look that great due to their blandness.

I can't fault the music. While Davids stuff sounds the same in general, he's managed to compose some annoyingly catchy dittys. In particular, the mines have a wonderful, catchy, yet gloomy appeal to them - created solely by the quality of the music. Sound effects appear to be taken from other games such as The Grandstream Saga, but since I've never heard of them I'm not too bothered. Sound effects, to me are the least important part of a game.

It'll take you ages to beat this game properly and get to the final, final boss stage. I'm not kidding.

It's an 8/10 for me. When it first came out I had never really seen anything like it in a klik game before. But time, while it has been kind to CT, has also worn away the initial appeal of the go-anywhere-do-anything concept - and besides, many more games have now attempted this. Overall, it still stands up as a high quality title. Roll on Crystal Towers 2.