Resetting our ZX Spectrum, we remove from memory Lunar Jetman, looking towards our next game in the Your Sinclair Top 100 and again it’s another from the Hewson Consultants Ltd. Number #30 was a game that made both critics and gamers really stop and look, as Nebulus had a certain unique feature.
Nebulus was programmed by John M. Phillips back in 1987 and you can in truth describe the aim of the game in one sentence. You start at the bottom of a tower and you need to get to the top, to blow it up. However, this extremely glib description does not in any way really describe what’s been placed into this game. Here you play the aquatic demolition expert Pogo and it’s your mission to destroy the eight towers that have been rather rudely dumped into your local oceans. These towers are covered in doors, platforms, lifts and meanies; when you enter a door the entire tower will rotate left or right…it looks fantastic.
John M. Phillips captured lightning here with Nebulus, the game itself – as said – is extremely simple to describe but to play this is a different matter completely. As with all Hewson games there is perfection delivered and also the fact that these games do not forgive you at all – for example if you make a slip up on a lift then you’re not going to complete the level. This however isn’t the big selling point here, and you only have to look a Nebulus to see what the main draw is – though I suppose with today’s Next-Gen graphics a few of you out there may not be impressed, but trust us members of the “Grey Race” this game shook the world with its rotating towers.
Nebulus still – in this decade – is an outstanding game to play. It will make you furious as seconds from the end you tumble from the final platform, the graphics are still brilliant and I’m still hugely impressed with what John delivered. Load up Nebulus now and give yourself some well earned great gaming time.
SEE ALSO: Back the Hewson Consultants latest game on Kickstarter titled Hyper Sentinel
Originally published July 29, 2016. Updated October 26, 2022.
