Zork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands

I’m giving this game a positive review, but only just. I would almost give this game a negative review, and here is why:

First of all is the image quality of this game. It is bad, real bad. Maybe it is because of image compression or something. The 640x480 screen resolution does not explain how bad the image quality is. I am aware that this game is old, but Zork Nemesis is from 1996, that is 3 years after the release of Myst, and Myst had much better image quality. If I compare this game to another game from 1996, let it be Lighthouse: The Dark Being, then the difference is also enormous. Lighthouse: The Dark Being also had much better image quality.

What bothered me even more than the image quality is the sound quality, which is also horrible. In many of the cutscenes I was unable to determine what the actors were saying and there are no subtitles in this DOS version of Zork Nemesis. This made it difficult for me to follow the story. There was one puzzle in the game which involved six talking heads. Of all six talking heads I could not hear what they were saying. All of them, all six, no matter how hard I tried, I could not decipher what they were saying. I could not solve this puzzle on my own.

Third thing that bothered me was that this game is hard to beat without a walkthrough, for several different reasons. The difficulty level of the puzzles ranges from very easy to very hard. It is for the hard puzzles that I needed to consult a walkthrough. Also, there was a floor in the game that had a trapdoor, but the trapdoor was barely visible because the image was too dark. And there were also several moments in the game where there were objects in the scene that could be interacted with, but the mouse pointer did not indicate these objects as interactable, which should be a bug.

Besides these negatives the game has mostly good sides. The game has some good puzzles with some eureka moments. The exploration of the different worlds is worthwile. The story is well done and some of the acting in the cutscenes was very good. It is clear that they hired professional actors to do the acting. Besides the negatives I still had some fun playing this game and for that reason I give it a thumbs up.

The UI moves too quickly no matter what speed you set it at. The game is unplayable.

A pretty short game, but the puzzles are fun and do require note taking if you want to avoid backtracking. The story is interesting as you uncover it and the world of zork is fun to explore. I like the live action cut scenes, although you might have trouble getting them to play properly.

I asked for a refund because, even if you slowly and carefully move the mouse to the edge of the screen, the scene starts spinning out of control. I barely managed to climb the stairs at the very beginning, and I already got a headache.

This game is a classic mind expanding make you think experience. Playing this game without google search was not easy back in 1995 or whatever year it was when I had half the neighborhood kids trying to help me. ( not everyone had house hold computers at that time ) There would be 4 or 5 of us putting our heads together . That being said and what i said about the origional Zork review, the fact that steam even has this game ( without CD ROM ) is worth the price in itself. If you enjoy thinking games. Zork nemesis is a Dark Adult "Myst" type game. As myst was magical and happy. Zork is Dark n Dreadful

I've only just started it, but the story and gameplay are as I remember. You may have to scale the speed back a little as the scroll speed for me is a little too out of control.

Still, I'm glad to own this title again.

when I was young I loved these games, but as I upgraded they were left further behind, until now.
now I don't have to downgrade to play them. Thanx to Steam.

Do I recommend THE game? Absolutely. It was a fav of mine back in the day. The reason I cannot recommend THIS game is because its 2021 not 1995. That it runs at all is surprising, but it looks like hell and is virtually unplayable. It was made to be played on 17" CRTs. The interlacing makes the cut scenes, there are many, nearly indiscernible. Some toying with settings may improve it some, but, to my mind, if we, the consumer, have to reprogram and modify the game ourselves to make the product usable it should be free. There are a lot of great old games out there lost to posterity. Some, like this, have been thrown back into the marketplace "as is" for us to make do with. Or not. They probably should have left this one to oblivion if there was no intention to retool it like Myst. Pity.

I mean, it's an obvious rip off of Myst, but it's better than Myst in any way I can think of except originality. I only wish it was a bit goofier. There's also way too many corpses.

Raw port that doesn't account for modern computer clock speeds, etc. Results in the screen turning at a blindingly fast rate. If nostalgia drives you to fiddle with it, maybe it'd be worth it for you. But, coming in blind, it wasn't worth it for me.

First thing's first: I recommend running this game in ScummVM, which seems to help with the mouse panning speeds, Additionally, there's a patch floating around the internet for anyone that wants subtitles, which is always a welcome addition in my book.

As for the game itself, it's much darker and more serious than any Zork game. There are very few moments of humor to lighten the tone. Instead, what's replaced is a lot of mature and disturbing stuff, especially in a few levels. The game itself seems more like a game one would expect from the Myst series, exploring mostly empty yet beautiful locations and solving various puzzles to a haunting yet great soundtrack.

For the puzzles themselves, they're quite fair, provided you are willing to poke around and do some reading through letters and texts in the game. There also doesn't seem to be as many ways to die as the previous Zork games, though as is tradition with Zork, saving often is still recommended.

In spite of it never really fitting with the tone of the other entries in the Zork series, Zork Nemesis is an enjoyable game. Even if its tone and story can get pretty dark, these qualities are ultimately what made Zork Nemesis a more memorable and, quite honestly, more engaging experience.

Imagine if Myst was made by Stanley Kubrick. I can't help feeling like the Zork tag came to this game late in development. Its dark, oppressive, and mystical atmosphere doesn't fit with the comic snark we are used to. If you found Grand Inquitor or Return to Zork to be overly goofy, you may still greatly enjoy this game. It shares very little with them. The focus is mainly on alchemy and hermeticism which is genuine enough to satisfy a this pagan with a classics degree.

This game is incredibly difficult and designed to be slow paced, but the solutions to puzzles are usually so cool that it was worth it to stand there staring at it forever.

Also worth buying for the soundtrack alone. Its the first game Mark Morgan (Fallout, Planescape) did and it is a straight banger. Like a first album almost. Even in dos-box, the sound quality is amazing. If you're not familiar, think Lustmord with bongos. Either way, grab this. Its a cool game too.

Love this game. its full of great puzzles, and really relaxing. highly recommend if your into puzzles,

Excellent puzzles, fun, whimsical atmosphere, while still being a little eerie... yes, it's a throwback to 1996, so don't expect the best graphics, but the game play and story make it all worth it. Point and click style.. just make sure you save occasionally.. I played for 2 hours, died (I forgot you can die in this game) and had to start over because I never manually saved LOL

I played this when I was a child and it is responsible for me getting into these types of games.

After 2 decades, the beautiful scenes from this mind-boggling game are etched deeply in my memory.
I recommend it with all my heart in spite of the static views, due to its cleverness and complexity.

Zork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands is a point and click game that was released in 1995. You find yourself outside of a temple. Once you gain entry, you soon learn that you need to help four alchemists regain life in order to defeat the nemesis, a mysterious entity responsible for killing the them. Along the way, you'll find several letters, books, and forgotten moments in time that will validate your decision in the end.

Pros:
Graphics are okay (for the day)
A great deal of puzzles to solve
Puzzles range from easy to very hard
Non-linear
Simple controls
Acting is decent
Many hours of gameplay

Cons:
Screen shots are disabled
Mouse sensitivity is off the scale

There are many puzzles in this game ranging from easy to very hard, but if you keep an eye out and consult your notes on a regular basis, there's a good chance you'll finish without help. It's a good idea to read the manual before you begin because there's a map of the temple and there are a couple clues that will help you out.

I didn't experience any technical issues with this game, but the mouse sensitivity is set much too high and there's no option in the menu to decrease it. This makes it very difficult to navigate. A fellow gamer did find a way to adjust the sensitivity, however, the 360 degree turning radius, the scenes still scroll much to fast and there is no way to modify it.

All in all, this is a decent game, even so, I did notice that that Zork had the same formula as MYST. So much so, that they are almost carbon copies, nevertheless, that didn't make it any less enjoyable.

At the time of this review, Zork: The Forbidden Lands was selling for $5.99. As I mentioned before, it was released in 1995 but I really enjoyed this one and I recommend it.

I first played this game some fifteen years ago as part of a collection of Zork games, which included the three original text adventures. Zork Nemesis was always the odd one out - it's a first person adventure game, and it has almost none of the humour of the others, sometimes verging almost on horror - you start out exploring a mansion to rescue the souls of four alchemists who seems to be suffering immensely at the hands of a "nemesis", some sort of evil demonic being.

However, I am dissapointed in this Steam version, which has a few quirks. I'm pretty sure the game I played originally was the modern Windows version, which took up 4 CDs and probably wouldn't run so well on modern computers, but this one is the DOS version. When you start the game, press Control-P to load the options menu and turn on "3D sound". Without it, the sound will continually crackle and the audio is pretty dang awful. Also turn down the mouse sensitivity, which is really, really high by default, a major issue in a game controlled almost entirely by the mouse. Thanks heavens it comes with a manual, because there are no menus and thus you need to use keyboard hotkeys to save, lord and even quit the game. I didn't read the manual at first and thus got seriously confused when I couldn't exit. Remember: Control-S to Save, Control-L to load, Control-Q to quit.

Personally, I think STEAM or somebody could have improved this port a little bit. It comes with DosBox and runs okay, but it's clearly showing its age at times. I really, really would have preferred subtitles for the game, because there is a lot of voice acting.The contrast between the static pictures and the animated parts is also VERY jarring, due to the low resolution of the animated scenes. By complete accident while watching a youtube video of cats with sound effects, I managed to condense the Zork game into a window, where the resolution of the game isn't as much a problem.

in short, I recommend this game for anybody who likes point and click adventures. I found it well worth its price tag despite being a dos game and I even managed to get it on sale, when it was even cheaper. It does have a couple of quirks but they are fairly easily fixed and/or ignored.

There are basically two things you should know about this game: first, is it a good game; second, is it a good port.

To the first question, Zork Nemesis is among the best first-person point-and-click games of its era, and maybe my favourite outside Cyan Worlds' Myst/Riven. The plot involves you entering an ancient, run-down temple and learning about the plight of four great alchemists who have been trapped in a state of purgatory by an evil presence called Nemesis. Of course, like many great adventure games, things are not as simple as they seem.

It is a great game with tough but fair difficulty, no arbitrary deaths, a great little story, excellent cutscene direction, and really interesting and varied locations. If you take notes you should be able to beat the game without resorting to a guide, but there are also many guides online if you need to cheat. It is well worth the $5.99. The graphics are pre-rendered backgrounds with live action FMV playing on top of them, which at the time was very exciting and cutting edge. Also very nice music and sound effects, they really made the most of the 3 or 4 CDs the game shipped on.

Compared with other games in the genre, it has a darker and more sinister tone. It's not quite horror, but at times it's close: for example, one segment involves you decapitating a cadaver with a guillotine and hooking up the severed head to electrodes. This is not the light-hearted comedy of the traditional Zork games, although there are jokes here and there.

To the second question, I think the quality of the port is mixed. First, the game was released in two versions: Windows 95 and DOS. This is the DOS version, emulated through DOSBOX. There are no achievements, trading cards, gamepad controls, graphical settings, etc. Moreover, the DOS version requires you to use keyboard commands to save (Ctrl+S), load (Ctrl+R), exit (Ctrl+Q), and set options (Ctrl+P) because there are no menus. Please read the manual before you play to help with this. There are two minor technical issues -- some slight sound crackling, and mouse sensitivity is way too high. The bulk of the game is navigated through panning your field of view with the mouse, and so high mouse sensitivity makes it difficult to control. You can set it to a lower sensitivity in the preferences, but even on the lowest setting, it is too sensitive. This appears to be a repackaging of the GOG.com version, which also suffered from these issues.

There is also a question of the game holding up. It runs at 640x480; the FMV overlays are highly compressed, interlaced, low resolution video. Some of the game's beautiful visual designs look blurry or low detail because of the resolution, and there are a handful of puzzles where you must be very very precise with the mouse because click targets are quite small. This is definitely not modernized or ready for 2017, so I would recommend you be sure that you can handle something feeling dated before you jump in.

I highly recommend the game. The playtime listed above is until completion on a replay; someone playing for the first time without a guide would be looking at probably 10-12 hours, maybe a little more.

This game is another challenging addition to the Zork universe that takes a more somber tone punctuated with good humor. As a Zork game, the puzzles are again often very difficult and sometimes convoluted. As I iterate with other Zork titles, you are not a failure if you look around for hints. Just give it a fair shot, preferably with loved ones and pad and paper, then go online and look for pushes in the right direction.

The story is nice, the acting is pretty good, and the atmosphere is immersive. The animation for the time was gorgeous. Altogether a very atmospheric, well-put-together game.

P.S. The nudity tag is from art nudity and hardly explicit or frequent.

P.P.S. While there is substantially less peril and fewer opportunities to "lose" the game by breaking the wrong item, etc., save from time to time. There is a place where you can be eaten by grues.

P.P.P.S There may be technical issues with running the game. Be warned and ready to do some forum troubleshooting.