Designed and written by Creative Reality.
Game concept by David Dew, Jason Austin and Michael J. Archer.
Amstrad CPC version:
Programming by Neil Dodwell and Jason Austin
Graphics by David Dew
Sounds by Rob Hubbard
Commodore 64 version:
Programming by Michael J. Archer
Graphics by David Dew
Sounds by Rob Hubbard
Sinclair ZX Spectrum version:
Programming by Jason Austin and Michael Archer
Graphics by David Dew
Sounds by Rob Hubbard
All versions published by Martech in 1987.
---
INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS
As a reasonably quick one to fill the gap between August and the upcoming Ocean October, I decided to take a look at a game, that I knew from previous experience, would not be too complex to write about. My first memory of Martech's Nemesis the Warlock was reading about it from a Finnish games yearbook in the late 1980's, where the reviewer mentioned the game's ultra-violent approach, which instantly piqued my interest, being a horror fan from an early age. It wasn't a particularly praising review, but the concept of games being ultra-violent was a new idea to me then, and I did wonder, how would this style be approached in a computer game. So, having only ever played the C64 version, I wanted to finally see, how the two other versions compared to it.
---
HISTORY, DESCRIPTION & REVIEW
Back when there were not that many superhero movies to make computer games out of, several comic book characters did get some interactive exposure. Some Marvel and DC Comics characters did get their own games, mostly written by American developing teams, but the games we got to know better in Europe, were mostly based on British comic book and comic strip characters, such as Andy Capp, Judge Dredd, Dan Dare and Sweeney Toddler - upon which Jack the Nipper is basically based on. Nemesis the Warlock was one of the characters that appeared in the British weekly comics anthology 2000 AD, along with the aforementioned Judge Dredd and Dan Dare.
The title character is, as we are told, a fire-breathing demonic alien, whose mission in life is to free the galaxy from tyranny. His main antagonist, Tomas de Torquemada, is a haughty religious fanatic and a fascist, who rules the Earth in a distant future, where Earth has taken a new name, Termight (Mighty Terra). The comic series follows Nemesis going through space and time, trying to end Torquemada's reign of terror, and it was originally released between 1980 and 1989, with the final book released ten years later.
Fully titled Nemesis the Warlock: The Death of Torquemada is, as you probably could have expected, not exactly one of the brightest and most depthful tie-in games of any comic series ever made. To be fair, it didn't ever try to approach the content in that sense. What it did, was try to get the basic visual style and violence from the comics portrayed as good as possible within the 8-bit limitations. In that, the game succeeded admirably. Whether that makes Nemesis the Warlock (the game) any worth digging up these days or not is entirely a matter of taste, since it is little more than a relatively obscure, perhaps regionally limited cult classic nowadays.
---
LOADING
This time, I was unable to find all the available cassette versions of this game from the usual online repositories, so instead of a full tape loading times disclosure, I have gone with the original loading times only. As it happens, they were also the quickest loaders on the AMSTRAD and SPECTRUM, where the Spanish re-releases were also available for comparison.
C64 Martech: 3 minutes 15 seconds
CPC Martech: 5 minutes 19 seconds
SPE 48k Martech: 4 minutes 26 seconds
SPE 128k Martech: 4 minutes 58 seconds
Unsurprisingly, the AMSTRAD version is the slowest of this bunch, and the C64 version the quickest. At least there is some incentive to have the SPECTRUM version as well, since the original tape features both 48k and 128k versions on the flip sides of the same cassette.
 |
| Loading screens. Top row: Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Bottom left: Amstrad CPC. Bottom right: Commodore 64. |
---
PLAYABILITY
Playing Nemesis the Warlock can be a bit confusing at first. The game plays fairly straight-forward, similar to many other platforming action games, in that you jump around platforms and try to kill your enemies in any manner you can by using a joystick or keyboard. You can even duck, if you need to dodge enemy bullets or other collisions. So, nothing particularly special in the controls thus far.
Starting the game puts you immediately into a screen with platforms you can jump around on, and Torquemada's Terminators keep endlessly appearing on the screen, with a limit of four Terminators on screen at once. You stay on this one screen until you finish the given kill quota, and then you need to find the exit to the next screen through one of the screen's borders. There are 24 screens in the game, ending with a cliffhanger after a great battle, suggesting there should have been a sequel.
Each screen features a number of bullet clips for your rifle, which is empty as the game starts, and your maximum amount of bullets at any given time is only twelve. Whenever you run out of bullets, though, you have a sword, with which you can slice up Terminators. Using the sword is a bit slower, so you need to keep the fire button pushed down while pushing the joystick into the intended direction as long as it takes for Nemesis to fully swing his sword. Sometimes, slicing up a Terminator will make the dead Terminator corpse shake for a bit, before spawning scythe-wielding zombies, which take a longer while to kill. This is a direct result of Torquemada's influence indicator growing clearer. If you feel badly outnumbered and short of life, you can spit fiery acid at your enemies by smashing Space bar, instantly killing everything the acid touches, but you can only use this special weapon once during a screen.
Rather unique for its time, Nemesis the Warlock had a feature of not only having dead corpses stay on the screen for as long as you inhabited it, but that you could actually pile up the dead Terminators and jump on them. This unique feature would let you sometimes even reach platforms that were unreachable otherwise.
The one major conceivable problem with this game, if you like to think it as such, is that you only have one life with a barely comprehensible life indicator in the form of a heart being squeezed to pulp by a fist, which takes a while before your heart is completely smashed. The way to avoid early death is just to dodge bullets and other collisions, and move on to the next screen as quickly as possible, whereupon your life indicator resets. Another way to die is to exit the screen through a hole at the bottom, when you shouldn't, which takes you to die in a void. Of course, without a map, you possibly cannot know, where to go, so it's trial and error until the end.
Although the basic gameplay elements are very much the same in all three versions, there are some notable differences. The SPECTRUM version plays the fastest, and is therefore the easiest to control. It should also be mentioned, that it has a quota of ten kills in the first level, and an inconvenience of your bullets getting stopped by dead bodies and other platforms. The AMSTRAD version is a bit sluggish and jerky by comparison, but otherwise feels pretty similar with the kill counter and collision detection things.
The C64 version feels the slowest, although it's also the smoothest one. On the plus side, your bullets go through dead bodies and platforms, but then the collision detection is a bit shady, often bullets going through Terminators with no impact, but your sword being able to deliver a hit further away than is visually accurate. Most annoyingly, though, you need to kill as many as 25 Terminators in the first level, which with your tendency to take damage from every little thing, makes the C64 version much more difficult to make any progress in. Then again, you might want to take into consideration, that the high enemy kill quota is compensated by the bullets being able to go through material. Still, 25 is still a bit high to start with, given the amount of given bullets in the first screen.
Despite their differences, all three versions are not too unequally playable. The C64 version is the hardest and most unforgiving of the lot, the SPECTRUM version is the most approachable, and the CPC version falls between.
1. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM
2. AMSTRAD CPC
3. COMMODORE 64
---
GRAPHICS
When the preview of a game based on 2000 AD's Nemesis the Warlock series reached the gaming press in April 1987, the reviewers raved on about the game's gruesome and detailed animations, which is really the only aspect of the comic series that could have been realistically expected to be gotten right in a computer game. But just how gory and brutal the graphics are, and should anyone really worry about them these days? I can hardly tell.
 |
| Title screens, left to right: Amstrad CPC, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64. |
In the AMSTRAD and C64 versions, the bottom third of the screen is taken by the info panel we will be seeing in the game utilised to its full potential, while the 48k SPECTRUM screen is rather empty apart from the control options and the two logos. If you play the 128k SPECTRUM version, though, you get a separate credits screen with some mildly disturbing graphics. Of course, the AMSTRAD and C64 versions have no need for control options, so they have the credits shown properly in the title screen, instead.
 |
| In-game screenshots from the Sinclair ZX Spectrum version. |
As is perhaps only too common, the in-game screen set-up is a division of little less than half of the screen's vertical space taken by the info panels, and the rest of it taken by the framed action screen. In the SPECTRUM version, the game's subtitle "The Death of Torquemada" doesn't get shown until you start the game, as it is included in the lower info panel. Under that, you can find indicators for required kills (left), your heart condition, Torquemada's influence and your rifle's remaining bullets. At the very bottom, we can see an opened yellow scroll saying "Game 1", which would suggest that there was a second game being planned, and right at the top, above the action screen, you can see the current score (left) and the highest score so far (right), with the special spit weapon indicators on both sides of the score panels. It's all very colourful and detailed in this area surrounding the action screen, but the action screen itself is rather monochromatic with cyan and black being the primary colours, with red platforms and bullet clips showing in two colours: white while on the ground, and blue once you have picked one up. Until the very last screen, you only get two types of enemies, but their - and your - animations are so nicely done that it feels like more.
 |
| In-game screenshots from the Amstrad CPC version. |
With black being the primary colour in the area surrounding the action screen, a cyan/turqoise background for the action screen could have been a bit too flashy, so they made it grey instead for the CPC version. The other colours are dark blue, bright red and black, so there are even less colours here than in the SPECTRUM version, but the characters feel better defined and exhibit no attribute clash when inhabiting areas with structures, so it looks a lot cleaner. The animations are a bit choppy and clunky, but otherwise, I do like the darker overall approach here.
 |
| In-game screenshots from the Commodore 64 version. |
As you might have expected, the C64 version has a more earthy quality to it, although the amount of brown here is not excessive. Only the platforms and their structural beams are brown and black, and the fist squeezing Nemesis' heart in the bottom right corner is naturally brown. Nemesis himself, as well as all your enemies are drawn in black, two shades of blue and grey, albeit in a chunkier graphics mode than in the other two versions, and the bullet clips on the ground are little grey chunks that actually disappear instead of show the removed clip in an alternate colour. More importantly, though, each level has a differently coloured background, and the action screen extends over the top border, enabling the sprites to be shown fully even on the topmost platforms and above. All of the necessary information is located underneath the action screen, with the score counter being shown in the bottom border. So, there's definitely a lot of tricks in use here that easily makes the C64 version the most impressive-looking version of the lot, and gets the gore look the most natural from all three versions. And as I mentioned earlier, the animations are smooth and flawless, just a bit slower than elsewhere. The only thing missing are the enemies that first appear in level 5 in the SPECTRUM version. Having watched a longplay of the C64 version on YouTube, these flying creatures are completely absent.
 |
| Falling into void screens, left to right: Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64. |
 |
| Text screens, left to right: Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64. |
While I do enjoy the AMSTRAD version's utter darkness and crispy clear graphics, it has its flaws in animation and overly bright background, especially for the void. The SPECTRUM version has the prettiest border ornaments and info panels, and the animations aren't bad either, but the chosen colours are a bit unorthodox and the colour clash is as unfortunate as ever. The C64 version does look chunky and ugly in some ways, but it does offer more impressive tricks, a visual sense of progression, and smoother animations than any other version, but then it's missing one of the game's three enemy types. So it's really a matter of balance here - some things are sacrificed in favour of others. My preference is the ugly, chunky C64 graphics, because to me, that style feels the most fitting for the theme of Nemesis the Warlock as an 8-bit game.
1. COMMODORE 64
2. AMSTRAD CPC
3. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM
---
SOUNDS
The only known attempt at getting Nemesis the Warlock into any sort of animated or live-action form was a short clay-animation preview shown on BBC in 1988, which would have been too late anyway to get any sort of inspiration for the game, in terms of content or even something as simple as music. So, Creative Reality had a clean slate in that regard, to do whatever they possibly could come up with by themselves.
Rob Hubbard was called in to write the theme music for the game. According to various sources, he originally wrote the tune for the C64 version, and then translated it to the AY-chips. Of course, this makes sense, considering Hubbard was primarily known for his C64 work. The theme tune for Nemesis the Warlock is often cited to be one of Hubbard's finest works, as it is a fairly progressive piece of music (roughly in a similar manner as Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven" progresses) that only ceases to evolve at its coda, around the six minute mark, and the music loops back to the beginning at 6:52. The theme tune plays during the tape loading screen and the title screen, but during play, you only get sound effects, of which there are fourteen different kinds, as far as I know. You get various kinds of sound effects for shooting, swishing your sword, bullets hitting enemies, enemies respawning, picking up bullet clips, entering the next area, taking damage, zombies vanishing and upon Game Over.
Whether the claim of the C64 version of the theme tune is true or false, it does feel as if the AY-chips' versions of it were downgrades from the SID-chip version, and not just for missing over two and a half minutes from the track. After all, the SID-chip is much more versatile in its capabilities in good hands, and we can certainly hear the differences in the SPECTRUM and AMSTRAD versions. Granted, Rob Hubbard may not be the most capable AY-chip programmer of all time, but that is not to say the AY-versions of his masterpiece are bad, just less complex in details and less layered. Also, the SPECTRUM version of the tune plays a full step lower than the C64 and AMSTRAD versions.
The 48k SPECTRUM version includes no music, but you do get the usual ticks, taps and tschups in various forms during play. While it's certainly not the most impressive version of the lot, it still does its job well enough, considering the platform, at any rate. The 48k sound effects are used in the 128k version as well, with no option for in-game music. Contrarily, the AMSTRAD version only has music played on a loop, with no option for sound effects, which in turn can make the unmutable soundtrack less pleasant than the 128k SPECTRUM version's sound design choices. Thus, we have a clear order here.
1. COMMODORE 64
2. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM 128k
3. AMSTRAD CPC
4. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM 48k
---
OVERALL + VIDEO
In the end, Nemesis the Warlock proves to be another one of those games, where FRGCB's illogically mathematical scoring system fails to do its job properly. I find the SPECTRUM version, particularly the 128k version, the best compromise overall, with playability at the top, but the C64 version has the gruesomeness factor with its ugly, but well animated graphics just about right, and the visual sense of progression along with the best sounds does give you a pretty good alternative over the other two. Shame about its harsh difficulty level.
1. COMMODORE 64: Playability 1, Graphics 3, Sounds 4 = TOTAL 8
2. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM 128k: Playability 3, Graphics 1, Sounds 3 = TOTAL 7
3. AMSTRAD CPC: Playability 2, Graphics 2, Sounds 2 = TOTAL 6
4. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM 48k: Playability 3, Graphics 1, Sounds 1 = TOTAL 5
To be fair, it's not as if Creative Reality were not doing their best at getting the best possible product out there for all three (or four) platforms, but perhaps due to a hurried release, some bugs managed to sneak into the SPECTRUM and AMSTRAD releases. The SPECTRUM version might crash the game, when leaving the screen at the wrong place, which is annoying, considering you possibly couldn't know where the exits are when playing the game for the first time. At least the Spanish re-release fixed the 48k version, but the 128k version still has the bug. The AMSTRAD version gets corrupted graphics in levels 13 and 24, so an unofficially fixed version is recommended for that one. So, from the original releases, the C64 version is still the least unplayable in that sense. However, the SPECTRUM and AMSTRAD versions offer a more complete experience, whenever they decide to co-operate, so I would say they're all pretty much equal.
Here's a relatively quick video to show you exactly the same amount of stuff I've been telling you about in this text. Although Theshadowsnose had an unemulated comparison with commentary from 11 years ago already on Youtube, I decided to do my own version, because the visual quality in his video was, frankly, less than adequeate.
Nemesis the Warlock isn't the sort of game you hear people talk about with rose-tinted glasses, but at the time, it had its reason to exist. Now, with computers and consoles having better graphical capabilities and gratuitous amount of gore being a common feature, Nemesis the Warlock only represents a footnote in this sort of design's history, and is barely worth a remake. However, I would like to see an actual animation or live-action TV-show made out of this IP, if only because tracking down the comics themselves at this point might prove somewhat tricky.
That's it for this month, as I will be focusing the rest of this month into working on next month's two (or three) Ocean game comparisons. Thanks for reading - until the next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment