Computer Gamer


Nemesis
By Konami
MSX

 
Published in Computer Gamer #20

Nemesis

Nemesis is one of the most popular games ever to hit the arcades and it's the MSX owner's good fortune that the game is one of Konami's rich catalogue. This means we get the thrill of the game before the less fortunate owners of other machines.

Nemesis is an earth-like planet under attack from the Bacterions. Your mission is to defeat the enemy by battling through wave after wave of Bacterion defences until you reach their superfortress, Xaerous.

Flying the Warp Rattler hyperspace fighter you have to wreck the enemy defences and steal their power capsules. Each capsule collected moves a cursor across a range of booster weapons displayed along the bottom of the screen. The extra weapons available are speed up, missile, double, laser, option and a force-field barrier.

Nemesis

Speed up increases your ship's manoeuvrability (eight different levels) and the barrier makes you invulnerable to enemy attack. Missile and double are very similar, giving the power to fire upwards or downwards at an angle in addition to your ever-present forward facing pulse cannon. Laser changes your pulse cannon into a high penetration laser, a very powerful weapon indeed.

Selecting Option creates a Sidewinder unit which has the same weaponry as the current complement of your Warp Rattler. These units hang like beads from your craft and you can have a maximum of two units, tripling your firepower!

The superweapons can be used in conjunction with one another with the exception of laser and double where the latest unit selected replaces the unit you had before.

Nemesis

All this choice turns the Rattler into a venomous fighting machine of awesome power but to attain the maximum firepower you have to stay alive. If your ship collides with the oncoming enemy, or the ground-based guns manage to shoot you down, your ship returns to normal and you have to start all over again building up from the basic Rattler.

If you buy this cartridge it is worth making sure you have a proper MSX joystick. It will make the game slightly easier to play because it uses both fire buttons for separate functions.

The action is fast and furious and I would certainly nominate this as the MSX game of the year. I'd even go further, and say that this is the MSX game of all time!