Zork Nemesis Review
I first started playing this morbid game in 1997 (I think) with my siblings. Wandering around alone in a monastary that's haunted by a demon and ghosts can be very terrifying. Having to visit the room with four dead bodies and talk to their spirits is another. Lying in a sarcophagus to retrieve an important item is creepy. Taking a dead body out of a morgue in order to decapitate it and then question its head on some machine was overdoing it. I heard that the previous Zork games were nowhere as dark or as gruesome as this, so I've no idea why the developers thought it was necessary for Zork Nemesis to stray so far from its predecessors. Still, if you ignore the gore, it's a fairly good game (even though it felt a lot like Myst) with a variety of interesting puzzles, and the visuals are pretty so long as there's no blood or corpses in the screen.
Story Presentation
It's played from a first-person perspective and the visuals are a remediation of film, just like Myst. There are books and letters scattered everywhere which serve to reveal the background history of the locations, the character motivations and how some of the puzzles are to be solved. The manual itself is written as a journal, providing even more background info on the characters, locations and certain special objects to take note of. It also provides maps and introduces the player to the mystery surrounding four alchemists, the temple where they were last headed for (and where the player will begin the journey), and the Nemesis.
The game begins with the player hearing the voice of the dead woman Alexandria, asking for his/her help to save them. After entering the temple, Nemesis will warn the player through his creepy yet booming voice to abandon the quest since all he/she will find is death. He's not kidding. There are four dead bodies in the main hall, each in its own see-through coffin. How and why they died is a mystery the player has to solve, but it's a no-brainer that the four are also the missing alchemists.
The player gets to wander around the temple and solve puzzles that are associated with either the four elements (water, fire, air and earth) or planets (Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars). Each of the elements and planets are associated with the four alchemists (Venus = water, Jupiter = fire, Saturn = air, and Mars = earth). Solving any of the group puzzles would allow the player to speak to the dead alchemist spirit associated with those puzzles, and the alchemist would reveal how the Nemesis murdered them and two young adults, Alexandria and Lucien, in an attempt to get the Philosopher's Stone. All four will talk the player into venturing to their homes and create the stone before he does, explaining that it's the only way to bring them all back to life.
Once the player starts visiting their homes, however, he/she will get to see flashbacks through touching certain objects which slowly reveal their true motivations. This part seems rather odd. There's no reason given why touching those objects would show flashbacks that the four alchemists wouldn't want anyone to see. Anyway, the player gets to realise eventually through reading the letters and seeing flashbacks that the only true innocents are Alexandria and Lucien, and that the four wanted to use Alexandria's blood to create the stone for themselves because she's special.
What the game doesn't explain at all is *how* Lucien became the Nemesis. While the player gets to see how Lucien killed all four one by one after arriving seconds too late to prevent Alexandria's murder, it doesn't show how he turned from a perfectly normal human being to a floating pink glow. Ooh, scary! A floating pink glow! The other flaw is that the way the four were killed by this one guy was incredibly lame. They just stood there and let him kill them one by one! And one of them is supposed to be an accomplished military general. All the years of plotting for immortality wasted just because they didn't think of ganging up against him.
The game forces the player to complete the mission for the four alchemists. Even if the player finds out later that he/she's really helping the bad guys, there's no way to advance forward except to do their bidding. Usually this is a bad thing and I normally get annoyed with this, but I wasn't really annoyed with this one. It's likely due to it being a puzzle-driven game rather than a character-driven one, and the twist isn't all that apparent until after you've uncovered a substantial amount of information. I was however annoyed that Lucien knew what was really going on but instead chose not to expose their deceit to me till after they've revealed their true intentions. There's no real reason why he wouldn't attempt to make the player realise what's going on apart from the "Let's not spoil the twist" reasoning, so I didn't like this part very much.
One difference between Myst and Zork Nemesis is that you aren't alone once you start venturing to other locations. The player always gets to meet exactly one living person in each of the four locations, and three out of four are connected to a puzzle each. It's hard to say whether it's a relief to see them or not. My sister always found it creepy that a place that's seemingly vacant actually isn't. I'm not even sure why those people choose to remain behind when everyone else supposedly left out of fear of being cursed.
Game Design
For a game with a linear storyline, it has a very non-linear approach to puzzle-solving because all the puzzles can be solved in any order. If you're stuck with one puzzle, you can move to the next puzzle as they usually can be solved independently. Sometimes you can choose to visit a completely different location altogether, and all the items you find in the different locations are meant to be used in those locations alone. Sometimes there'd be some literature telling you the recipe or the secret combination needed to solve puzzles, so there's usually enough feedback. The early stages of the game also has an in-game hint system (which can be disabled), where the player can touch Venus' painting after touching a puzzle in order to hear a hint. If the player can't solve it after getting a few hints, the painting will give the solution. Overall, the game handles the stuck-problem well since there's plenty of things to see and explore, and the player rarely gets completely stuck.
Most of the puzzles are logical enough to solve although some don't make much sense story-wise. Why would replacing a ripped poster with a brand new version suddenly make a concert appear out of nowhere, complete with a noisey yet ghostly audience? There are also a few frustrating puzzles, but the one I recall the most vividly involves clicking instruments in the right order in pitch darkness to play a tune in order to turn on the lights! Pixel-hunting takes on a whole new meaning in this puzzle, and it's very easy to miss the right instrument and click on the wrong ones.
I was quite impressed by the variety of puzzles used in this game. Each of the puzzles followed a theme that's associated with the characters, but even then they were presented in very different ways and solving them hardly felt repetitive. For instance, the Mars location had a painting with a hidden message and four strategy information speakers which had to be used together to key in a suitable military strategy code and win the war. It also had a pool table where keying in the right number would reveal a number combination. The player has to realise that the combination is meant for driving the tank and the clue to figuring out the right number to get the combination has to do with the titles associated with the numbers. For Saturn's place, the player has to figure out that the weird vision he/she gets from sitting in a creepy chair actually reveals a door that can't be seen otherwise.
Unfortunately, because those puzzles were interesting, the last puzzle was a letdown and seemed rather anti-climatic in comparison. You don't have to figure out how it works. Just click on all four, and you're bound to get the right combination quickly.
It is possible to die in this game, but death in this game is few and far between, which is rather ironic now that I think of it. A game that's meant to be gorey as well as creepy has fewer death scenes than the Sierra adventure games for kids. The game also usually makes it obvious when it's possible to die.
It's also possible to get into a dead-end situation. If the player hangs a lit torch before solving a puzzle, then he/she can't take it back and can't solve that puzzle, rendering it unwinnable.
The game has a ranking system that updates itself everytime the player successfully completes all the puzzles in their respective groupings. It's a useful way of seeing just how far you've progressed in the game since it only has nine ranks and lets you know which rank you're under during gameplay. It's not the same as the score system used in the Sierra games as there's no way to complete the game without getting the full score.
GUI
It uses pretty much the same interface as Myst. Navigation is done using a gold arrow, while interaction is done using a gold hand. The cursor highlights when you either encounter an object that can be interacted with or if there's another possible direction to look such as up or down.
The menu interface pops up if the cursor moves to the top of the screen, and all the options are in text only.
Right-clicking the mouse changes the cursor to an inventory item. You have to keep clicking on the right mouse button to cycle through all the items.
Story Presentation
It's played from a first-person perspective and the visuals are a remediation of film, just like Myst. There are books and letters scattered everywhere which serve to reveal the background history of the locations, the character motivations and how some of the puzzles are to be solved. The manual itself is written as a journal, providing even more background info on the characters, locations and certain special objects to take note of. It also provides maps and introduces the player to the mystery surrounding four alchemists, the temple where they were last headed for (and where the player will begin the journey), and the Nemesis.
The game begins with the player hearing the voice of the dead woman Alexandria, asking for his/her help to save them. After entering the temple, Nemesis will warn the player through his creepy yet booming voice to abandon the quest since all he/she will find is death. He's not kidding. There are four dead bodies in the main hall, each in its own see-through coffin. How and why they died is a mystery the player has to solve, but it's a no-brainer that the four are also the missing alchemists.
The player gets to wander around the temple and solve puzzles that are associated with either the four elements (water, fire, air and earth) or planets (Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars). Each of the elements and planets are associated with the four alchemists (Venus = water, Jupiter = fire, Saturn = air, and Mars = earth). Solving any of the group puzzles would allow the player to speak to the dead alchemist spirit associated with those puzzles, and the alchemist would reveal how the Nemesis murdered them and two young adults, Alexandria and Lucien, in an attempt to get the Philosopher's Stone. All four will talk the player into venturing to their homes and create the stone before he does, explaining that it's the only way to bring them all back to life.
Once the player starts visiting their homes, however, he/she will get to see flashbacks through touching certain objects which slowly reveal their true motivations. This part seems rather odd. There's no reason given why touching those objects would show flashbacks that the four alchemists wouldn't want anyone to see. Anyway, the player gets to realise eventually through reading the letters and seeing flashbacks that the only true innocents are Alexandria and Lucien, and that the four wanted to use Alexandria's blood to create the stone for themselves because she's special.
What the game doesn't explain at all is *how* Lucien became the Nemesis. While the player gets to see how Lucien killed all four one by one after arriving seconds too late to prevent Alexandria's murder, it doesn't show how he turned from a perfectly normal human being to a floating pink glow. Ooh, scary! A floating pink glow! The other flaw is that the way the four were killed by this one guy was incredibly lame. They just stood there and let him kill them one by one! And one of them is supposed to be an accomplished military general. All the years of plotting for immortality wasted just because they didn't think of ganging up against him.
The game forces the player to complete the mission for the four alchemists. Even if the player finds out later that he/she's really helping the bad guys, there's no way to advance forward except to do their bidding. Usually this is a bad thing and I normally get annoyed with this, but I wasn't really annoyed with this one. It's likely due to it being a puzzle-driven game rather than a character-driven one, and the twist isn't all that apparent until after you've uncovered a substantial amount of information. I was however annoyed that Lucien knew what was really going on but instead chose not to expose their deceit to me till after they've revealed their true intentions. There's no real reason why he wouldn't attempt to make the player realise what's going on apart from the "Let's not spoil the twist" reasoning, so I didn't like this part very much.
One difference between Myst and Zork Nemesis is that you aren't alone once you start venturing to other locations. The player always gets to meet exactly one living person in each of the four locations, and three out of four are connected to a puzzle each. It's hard to say whether it's a relief to see them or not. My sister always found it creepy that a place that's seemingly vacant actually isn't. I'm not even sure why those people choose to remain behind when everyone else supposedly left out of fear of being cursed.
Game Design
For a game with a linear storyline, it has a very non-linear approach to puzzle-solving because all the puzzles can be solved in any order. If you're stuck with one puzzle, you can move to the next puzzle as they usually can be solved independently. Sometimes you can choose to visit a completely different location altogether, and all the items you find in the different locations are meant to be used in those locations alone. Sometimes there'd be some literature telling you the recipe or the secret combination needed to solve puzzles, so there's usually enough feedback. The early stages of the game also has an in-game hint system (which can be disabled), where the player can touch Venus' painting after touching a puzzle in order to hear a hint. If the player can't solve it after getting a few hints, the painting will give the solution. Overall, the game handles the stuck-problem well since there's plenty of things to see and explore, and the player rarely gets completely stuck.
Most of the puzzles are logical enough to solve although some don't make much sense story-wise. Why would replacing a ripped poster with a brand new version suddenly make a concert appear out of nowhere, complete with a noisey yet ghostly audience? There are also a few frustrating puzzles, but the one I recall the most vividly involves clicking instruments in the right order in pitch darkness to play a tune in order to turn on the lights! Pixel-hunting takes on a whole new meaning in this puzzle, and it's very easy to miss the right instrument and click on the wrong ones.
I was quite impressed by the variety of puzzles used in this game. Each of the puzzles followed a theme that's associated with the characters, but even then they were presented in very different ways and solving them hardly felt repetitive. For instance, the Mars location had a painting with a hidden message and four strategy information speakers which had to be used together to key in a suitable military strategy code and win the war. It also had a pool table where keying in the right number would reveal a number combination. The player has to realise that the combination is meant for driving the tank and the clue to figuring out the right number to get the combination has to do with the titles associated with the numbers. For Saturn's place, the player has to figure out that the weird vision he/she gets from sitting in a creepy chair actually reveals a door that can't be seen otherwise.
Unfortunately, because those puzzles were interesting, the last puzzle was a letdown and seemed rather anti-climatic in comparison. You don't have to figure out how it works. Just click on all four, and you're bound to get the right combination quickly.
It is possible to die in this game, but death in this game is few and far between, which is rather ironic now that I think of it. A game that's meant to be gorey as well as creepy has fewer death scenes than the Sierra adventure games for kids. The game also usually makes it obvious when it's possible to die.
It's also possible to get into a dead-end situation. If the player hangs a lit torch before solving a puzzle, then he/she can't take it back and can't solve that puzzle, rendering it unwinnable.
The game has a ranking system that updates itself everytime the player successfully completes all the puzzles in their respective groupings. It's a useful way of seeing just how far you've progressed in the game since it only has nine ranks and lets you know which rank you're under during gameplay. It's not the same as the score system used in the Sierra games as there's no way to complete the game without getting the full score.
GUI
It uses pretty much the same interface as Myst. Navigation is done using a gold arrow, while interaction is done using a gold hand. The cursor highlights when you either encounter an object that can be interacted with or if there's another possible direction to look such as up or down.
The menu interface pops up if the cursor moves to the top of the screen, and all the options are in text only.
Right-clicking the mouse changes the cursor to an inventory item. You have to keep clicking on the right mouse button to cycle through all the items.
posted by Swift at 11:19 PM
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