Commodore User
1st February 1987Nemesis
It's happened! The moment you've all been waiting for! Nemesis has finally arrived from the arcade to our C64s. Credit for this conversion goes to programmer Simon Pick and graphics designer Bob Stephenson, arist of no less than The Pawn.
Your job is to kill off various aliens in their underground space station and pick u the pods they leave behind to improve the all-round performance of your spacecraft. Face an alien mother ship at the end of each level to move on to the next. So the game itself is as close to its original arcade version as it could possibly get.
Nemesis puts you in charge of a sophisticated spacecraft cruising slowly through outer space. At the bottom of your screen you'll see an options panel reading speed, missile, double (doubles your firepower), laser, multi (multiples your ship) and your shield. All these come into use as soon as you start zapping away at the alien enemy approaching you.
Your first task is to pick up various pods which will turn your ship into a superfast blaster. When you hit a string of discs without letting one get away, you are left with a pod that gives you the option to increase your speed.
Killing off the aliens will not always leave you with a yellow pod. Sometimes blue ones appear which act as smart bombs killing off everything on the screen when picked up. Often a pod does not even appear, but that's not too bad because there are enough around to do the job.
In the underground space station the upper and lower walls are covered with viciously firing cannons which should be disposed of quickly as they will shower your spacecraft in a hail of bullets as more alien ships confront you.
Onward through their deadly lair you're shot at by walking men (they look like cauldrons on legs) shooting from their lids. These can easily be got rid of if you managed to supply your ship with those nifty fly-along-the-ground missiles.
Capsules that open and let out fast-moving spacebats give your trigger finger a lot of work to do as you fend them off. But if you blow up the capsule before the balls get out, they'll be a cinch. Also watch out for the robots that bounce up and around your ship.
Just in case you thought the first level was easy, the aliens make a desperate last gasp attempt to get rid of you, a giant rock pumps five rows of bullets towards you which keeps you plastered in one position at the top of the screen leaving you to dodge left and right from oncoming missiles from our cauldron-like friends.
Move on to the next screen where there are two volcanoes. One or two multis will be handy at this stage as they will double your ship's firepower by giving you a glowing ball that closely follows your every move. It's a dodgy business getting past these volcanoes as they spurt up balls of flame at your ship.
After getting through all that you are met by the alien mothership at the end of the level. Shooting at the centre of the ship will bring the mothership down and fade you into the second stage.
The next stage is a little bit harder and takes good joystick control as you go through maze-like tunnels blasting bubble-like walls to make way for your ship.
Each level gets more impressive and more challenging than the last one. The game ends with you in the heart of the alien fortress fighting off an enormous brain that seems to fire endlessly. You simply carry on bashing it until the game restarts from the beginning again.
Graphics are excellent, with impressive metallic-like sprites. And the flame at the back of the spacecraft flickers very realistically as you thrust forward. Sound is great too, with the choice of having a delightful tune play or just sound effects with loud explosions.
With Jailbreak, this is the first coin-op conversion Konami have done for themselves. Jailbreak was awful. This restores credibility.
Scores
Commodore 64 VersionGraphics | 90% |
Sound | 80% |
Toughness | 90% |
Endurance | 70% |
Value For Money | 90% |
Overall | 90% |