Enemy: Tempest of Violence - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
56Enemy: Tempest of Violence is a flick screen shoot 'em up adventure designed by André Wüthrich, and self published on his own Anachronia label in 1997. This game has had a Free Redux "Easy Play" version (see below) released, but I played the original version to appreciate the original experience.
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Production Notes:
Captured: 21st Oct 2020
Narrated: 11th Aug 2020
Edited: 11th Aug 2020 - 24 Nov 2021
Enemy: Tempest of Violence was the very first game I captured for this series, back in late October 2020. Series 5 part 2 was airing at that time, and I took a break from all of that final editing to play something I wanted to include in the next series. Although I had interviewed the author on Lemon, I think perhaps this was before he released the Easy Play version?, so I played the normal version from the WHDownload package.
I had played the game several months before, but got stuck fairly early on level 3 or 4, so I knew this review might have to rely on a few passwords to show the game off a bit. This was my second ever play of the game, and you can see in the footage that I was struggling almost from the start. In the review I say this "Isn't a time critical game" but maybe I should have added "as long as the player knows what to do", as there is nothing more unnerving than going around a map totally blindly, whilst also quickly running out of time.
As this was the first game to be recorded, I think this was also the first to be edited; so I went to town on the popups - or at least up to the old usual standard. It took quite a while to cut out things and make them slide in with funny messages, but hopefully it was worth it. It was quite easy to add speech bubbles, so I had to limit myself or it would get boring for me to add them. In fact I have been thinking last week "where is that review with all those captions in it?" - well, this is it.
Danscore:
To say Enemy 1 came out way late in the Amiga's lifetime is an understatement. By 1997, I was still using my 50Mhz A1200, but didnt know about any new releases by that time, and the internet was only just starting out. I think I didn't even notice Lemon Amiga until maybe 2008, so a good 10 years later. Quality is superb, especially for a game which requires Kickstart 1.2 or better, and 1MB of total ram; and this is very close to feeling like and AGA game in terms of graphics. The Paula driven theme tunes are atmospheric, as are the lighting changes; creating a measure on tention, especially as the time in the this version is a little too tight to be fun. There is a variety of level types including: exploration, puzzle solving, assassination, and survival - as you try to save a number of friendlies during a fire fight. Its a shame most people will never get to see this variety, as the normal game begins too slowly, and with not enough to keep the player hooked. The sequel game: Enemy 2, at least had action levels in between normal ones.
There is quality here, and a good deal of movie-like potential, but for me the reversed jumping controls really spoil what could have been a really great game. Perhaps if the gun control was more like Flashback, this could have been a similar type of game. Having the player wait around on platforms until the character shakes their head or nods to say the way safe or not is lost on most people who play this, and instead the level design leads to blind leaps into pits of death. The level design doesnt remind me of a spaceship, and the ground looks very much like we are inside a cave complex inside a planet. There isn't much to do except get constantly lost on the first levels, and this means the game will leave many platform and action fans cold. I think the game is worth 7 out of 10. Most of the elements are there, but the controls, the time limits, and long sprawling levels stop this from hitting the big scores.