Review: Towelfight 2: The Monocle of Destiny for iOS

Think of the most ridiculous concept for a video game, and then double the absurdity, and you might be close to the downright madness that is Towelfight 2: The Monocle of Destiny.

The sequel to Towel Fight of the Gods - an entry into the 2012 Global Game Jam - this insane fusion of The Legend of Zelda and twin-stick shooting is so crazy it has absolutely no right to work. And yet it does.

You play the role of Hardik, an elderly Indian gentleman who, at the opening of the tale, is innocently playing fetch with his beloved dog in the park when a warp hole transports him and his pooch to a land controlled by the evil Forn.

Summoned by the friendly Jobi, you're blessed with a magical monocle which is capable of shooting projectiles at enemies - with the catch being that the live ammunition you use is just that - each projectile is an animal with different attributes.

Shooting animals

IAPs explained According to the developer, Towelfight 2 has been balanced so it plays perfectly well without IAPs, but they're on offer regardless. 5,000 coins cost 65p, while at the other end of the scale you can get 60,000 coins for £2.62. As the developer says, these purchases are essentially for people who want to "cheat".

Through the course of your adventure - which is essentially a quest to collect power crystals and free Jobi - you pick up different animal bullets, which can then be loaded into your monocle 'clip'. This allows you to edit the firing sequence and select a varied range of shots. It's also possible to augment the power of each animal to gain more destructive projectiles.

Towelfight 2's twin-stick controls take a little getting used to, but they work well enough. The biggest issue we discovered is that the right-hand stick is very close to the edge of the screen, and on Android that can be a big problem - several times during the review we accidentally tapped the 'home' button and ended up closing the game down.

Thankfully, you can tap and move both virtual D-pads away from the edges of the screen, although as soon as you release your finger they snap back to their original position.

Keep an eye on this one

As the game's storyline probably suggests, Towelfight 2 contains a large helping of humour. The dialogue is laced with laughs, and whenever one of your shots hits an enemy a totally unrelated word or term pops up, such as "Greek Debt", "Spleen", and "Overly Sensitive".

None of these comments makes any sense, but the fact that they are completely out of context is far more amusing than it should be.

Although the shooting action is fairly straightforward, there's a surprising amount of depth on offer here. There are 40 animal shots to collect and 80 augments to unlock, and getting everything isn't an easy task.

It's refreshing to see a game that gleefully abandons sanity and goes out of its way to be as deranged as possible. Towelfight 2's loose grasp on reality is a definite bonus, though - it's just as amusing as it is playable, and is well worth a look if you're a fan of the twin-stick shooter genre.