Nemesis the Warlock, Amstrad CPC

Creative Reality developed and Martech published this adaptation of the famous 2000AD comic character, Nemesis the Warlock, in 1987. It is a simple platform action game where the aim is to kill as many Terminators as possible in order to open up the exit to the next level.

A counter on the information panel shows how many Terminators are remaining before you can leave the screen, and a picture of their leader, Torquemada, slowly fades in, depicting his power and influence. The more Torquemada is shown the more Terminators will enter the screen to try to kill you. Nemesis can either attack Terminators will his default sword (Excessus) or can pick up ammunition for his gun and shoot them from a distance. Nemesis can also use his acid breath to kill everything in front of him, although he can only do this once per screen.

Once you’ve killed the required number of Terminators you’re then free to try to leave the screen, to move on to the next one. This involves trying to exit the screen to the left, right, or the top, depending on the level. Each screen has a different exit and it only becomes available once the required quota of Terminators has been eliminated. Where you exit one screen will have an effect on where you enter the next screen, so you have to make sure that you exit in the right place, otherwise you can end up dying in the next screen (which, to be honest, is a little unfair). Taunts from Torquemada are shown as text messages between screens, or when you die.

The Amstrad version of Nemesis the Warlock features a continuous piece of music by Rob Hubbard, and uses split mode graphics for the display (low resolution for the information panel and high resolution for the play area). Gameplay is simple jumping and shooting and doesn’t really represent the comic character in any meaningful way.

Overall, this is not a very good adaptation of the Nemesis stories and demonstrates the limitations of 8-bit game design, at least when it comes to turning 2000AD characters into video games. I’d like to see a more modern realisation of Nemesis in a video game as this rather lacklustre title does an inadequate job.