Nemac IV (Amiga PPC) - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
81Nemac IV is a '3D dungeon' first-person mech shooter, originally released in 1996, and published by ZenTek. It received a noticeable upgrade in animations and graphics in 1997 with the CD-based Directors Cut; which until now, I have been unable to play smoothly on any configuration.
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Production Notes:
Captured: 11th March 2018 (040) and 12th May 2021 (PPC)
Narrated: 16th May 2021
Edited: 16th May 2021 - 26th May 2021, and December 2021
I remember I almost fell in love with this game, if only because with an 030 50Mhz, it was possible to play this kind of shooter and explore the technical feats of the emerging future. At the time, I had to make do with a cover disk demo of the standard version of the game, running 2:1 pixel mode, and in half of the screen area. If I squinted my eyes a bit, through the sea of pixels, I could clearly see there was a game in there; which seemed quite fun.
Fast forwards to the days of emulators, and it wasn't too long ago that I started playing with CD software. I found that although the game worked, the experience of the 'HD' Directors Cut was always too slow and jerky on any setup I tried, even 060, even PPC. Last year (2021) the maker of WinUAE released a new version, with an even faster JIT, and better PPC and RTG emulation. To my amazement, finally this game worked, it recognised a stock Zorro III UAE graphics card, and it also went full speed with JIT enabled, without needing Cycle Exact! At this point I set the cameras rolling, and set down for my first proper try. The game was basically brand new to me at this point, as even playing the first level at smooth refresh rates made it feel like a whole new experience. I think they developed this title with an A5000 spec in mind, sort of future proofing it.
Not too much to add to the edit of this one, apart from a few arrows and a screen overlay of the display panel. No speech bubbles - although I tried to fit one in on the final level, when I walk through the room of disabled robots, with "I'm not quite dead you know", but it didn't seem right to pause the experience just for this joke.
Danscore:
First person shooters were the butt of every joke about the Amiga in 1997. They said: "The Amiga is DEAD!, look!" And the crowd swarmed and pointed mockingly towards that once proud futuristic concept, and they were right. The Amiga heyday was over. The once grand flagship of the Commodore brand, which they said was 10 years ahead of it's time, was now 10 years out of date. Everyone jumped ship, and headed for the accelerated 3D systems of today's market. A few remained, mostly German and Polish coders, who tried to support a market for German big box Amiga's, with the latest graphics cards. The gamble didn't pay off. Most people tried to play those games with stock PAL or NTSC screen modes, and found these games to be mostly unplayable. Few people ever got to see those titles running on hardware which was fast enough, which gave games like Alien Breed 3D 2, Nemac IV and even Breathless a bad reputation. Today we can use a Vampire, so there can be no more excuses.
Nemac IV starts with a plot about blowing everything up on the levels, and then you set out to blow everything up on the levels. Just like AB3D2, the bullets and health are carried over from stage to stage, so playing this is a fine line between being cautious and full-on attack. The latter means the enemies cant return fire, which makes things even more fun. Each stage introduces something new, and even the colours change on the walls and floors, with some texturing on some rock surfaces. It's all the more glorious with a nice big screen mode, and a nice fast system, and players can save their progress in campaign mode so as to get better and better, without having to restart from scratch. The level design gets more interesting as it goes on, and the difficulty doesn't suddenly ramp up like with AB3D2. Although not as fun as Gloom, or as colourful, this game does have some charm and I'd say is worth 7/10.