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In the extremely rare event I cannot get this title to work on your system I will take it back for a full refund. All I ask is minimal assistance from you during the troubleshooting process.
The Game
There is probably no adventure gamer who has not at least heard of the Zork games (Corollary: If you haven't heard of Zork, you're not an adventure gamer). While Zork Nemesis is not a direct continuation
of the original Zork adventure games or even the much later Return to Zork, it does take place in the Great Underground Empire. It is not required to have any prior Zork experience to be able to play Zork
Nemesis but it is necessary to understand all the references to its predecessors spread throughout the game (those are not essential to solving the puzzles however).
At the beginning of the game you are confined to the Temple. Your first task is to recover an element (Fire, Water, Earth, Air) associated with each of the ex-Citizens. The elements were apparently hidden
somewhere in the temple by the Nemesis whose alchemical lab you will discover in the Temple.
Once you find all four elements, you will be able to travel to the homes of each of the four alchemists (Conservatory, Monastery, Asylum and Castle). Each of these is a completely self-contained area and in
all four you need to ultimately find a secret lab and purify an alchemical metal (Tin, Copper, Iron, Lead). With the metals in hand you are able to bring the dead alchemists back to life and go on to the Grand
and Somewhat Unexpected Finale of the game where all the mysteries of the Nemesis will be revealed.
In your travels you will also learn about Lucien Kaine (son of General Kaine) and Alexandria Wolfe, a stepchild of Bishop Malveaux raised in his Zorkastrian Monastery and a student of Madame Sophia's
Conservatory (a violinist). These two young people fell in love (predictably) but the relationship was fiercely opposed by Lucien's father who was a soldier and had no appreciation whatsoever for Lucien's
artistic tendencies.
And last but not least you will learn of Quintessence, the elusive Fifth Element which the four alchemists apparently set out to create, even though it is hard to tell what exactly the Quintessence actually is.
For some reason the four elements and alchemy seem very attractive to game designers and many adventures contain references to them. I suppose it's because the elements, planets, metals, symbols
and their relationships make good puzzle material.
And Zork Nemesis is primarily a puzzle game. There are clues strewn all around the place, many of them in old books dealing with alchemy and letters and journals of the protagonists. There is also an
intriguing story presented in an unusual (though not completely original) way: at various places in your travels you will see scenes from the recent and not so recent past (FMV clips). From these
flashbacks you will be eventually able to understand all the important events and motivations leading to the final confrontation.
The interface to Zork Nemesis is simple (perhaps deceptively simple) point-and-click with the ability to pan around 360 degrees in most places. There is not much of an inventory to speak of - you can only
switch between the items you're carrying by right clicking and there is no way to combine inventory items. But that's OK since most of the time you only carry one or two items anyway. Whenever you place
the cursor over an object that can be manipulated, the cursor will be highlighted.
The puzzles are of medium to high difficulty. Not because of lack of clues, on the contrary - there is more of an information overload and it is difficult to recognize which bit of information is important and
which isn't. Each of the five areas is relatively large. As a consequence the game takes a while to finish, certainly don't expect to solve it in one evening. Taking notes is a must for solving certain puzzles so
keep paper and pencil handy.
It is possible to get killed at several points in the game, unfortunately (or fortunately?) it happens so rarely that I more than once forgot to save early, save often and then was in for a nasty surprise
resulting in a forced replay of a lengthy game segment.
I shouldn't forget to mention that while Zork Nemesis is quite serious for the most part (if a game can be said to be serious that is), there are occasional glints of Zorkish humor, usually pertaining to the
history and culture of the Great Underground Empire.
Zork Nemesis is an enjoyable game with quality art, lots of puzzles and some surprising story twists. The environment is rich and detailed and exploring it is time well spent.
Note: My compatibility CD does not alter the retail game or bypass copy protection. It allows the original media to install and run correctly on any modern version of Windows.
On May-01-12 at 22:59:34 PDT, seller added the following information:
cnewman1966 Store
