There you are, spending a quiet day with your monocle and your pug, when suddenly a temporal rift opens up, whisking you away to a world where one God is planning on using you to overthrow his rival and thus take control of the land once again. In exchange for your help, he'll send you back home. Towel Fight 2: The Monocle of Destiny doesn't take itself too seriously, which you'd expect of a game where your primary attack is using your enchanted monocle to hurl animals to their doom.

The game is technically a twin stick shooter, or a twin d-pad shooter, which might be a more apt description. The directional pad on the left side of the screen moves your character in four directions, while the pad on the right shoots also in those four directions. This rigid movement sounds like it might be problematic but as long as you have freedom of movement and fire, you can easily duck in for a shot at an enemy, avoiding a projectile as you weave back out. Unfortunately the controls don't really allow that. You see, the d-pads only take up a small area on the screen and are not that responsive to your inputs. As of writing this review, an update is planned that is supposed to solve some of the control issues, so let's hope it delivers as while the game is playable, you'll be fighting the d-pads more than you will be the enemies.

The game itself not only has a strong sense of personality (and of humor), but has a lot going for it in terms of design. There's a large world map to uncover (complete with warp points to lessen travel), and upon clearing each room of enemies, you gain a bonus whether that be health, a new power-up that can fit in one of your three slots, or a new augmentation to your weapon load-out. The weapon system might be the most interesting. You fire animals, but as you collect new animals, you can load them into the rotating chamber of your monocle. Each of these weapons has a different effect and strength, but then you gather augmentations which change the properties of the animal when it hits an enemy. This certainly encourages experimentation and keeps the player interested in any new augmentation they find and what possible effects to the weapon load-out it may result in.

Towel Fight 2 seems like it would be better suited to a PC release. Not only due to the unfortunate control issues (although those with an iCade might have a better time), but its presentation and mechanics might not be accepted too well on the iOS where the majority of players are looking to plough through a few levels when they have five minutes free rather than map out a world and experiment with the weapon options on offer. At least such a market is niche on the App Store, and those players will certainly enjoy this release.