Reviews

Excellent graphics, one of the best from all the ZX games, nice graphic effects.

Very good music, a progressive polythematic space suite.

The plot is very ingenious, but too difficult (time passes too fast).

It was also released for Amiga, Amstrad CPC and C64.

Graphics 10/10
Music 8/10
Playability 3/10

Total: 7

I really want to say this is a great game, but it's not. It's too complex and the timer goes by too quickly, it pretty much doesn't give you enough time. The fire never seems to work for me and I was left feeling frustrated and bitterly disappointed, almost betrayed. This has excellent title music and wonderful design, but the gameplay again is the main drawback.

The music and the presentation is impressive, the gameplay though is severely lacking. The firing is pretty weak and the timer goes down way quicker than it ought to, which makes collecting all the crystals a needlessly more difficult chore than it needs to be. I also wasn't a fan of the slowdown in the music during the game, surely no music was a better option. I am sure this was better on other systems, but the Speccy version is a pretty big misfire.

Nice graphics, good music, but the gameplay isn't all that impressive, an all too familiar tale. If the game was more balanced and fair with the time going down at a normal pace rather than as quick as it does then this would have been so much better.

1988 Hewson Consultants (UK)
by Chris Wood, J. Dave Rogers & Stephen Crow

I see I'm not the only one disliking this game, and the complaints seem to be common, starting from the lack of firing effectiveness to the unfair time available.
Also most enemy fire comes from dragons which appear throughout each level all looking alike, changing just the color, making the game a bit repetitive.
But the main problem is definitely the gameplay.
The authors were more than capable of producing a better game, so I wonder why such a mediocre game.

2,5 points

I conclude a not very dissimilar conclusion like the ones of the previous comrades.
A bit of a lost opportunity.
Firing and the graphics (imsufficient vertical sync)being some lower arguments. OK for some others but Hewson could make much better

This is not a game for the easily discouraged. The Spectrum version of Jukka Tapanimaki's C64 classic is competently done and retains the difficulty of the original, while of course it cannot count on the hardware scrolling capabilities of the light brown machine. However graphics are detailed enough and colorful, and sound on the 128K is nice. The biggest problem for me is the time limit, but on the whole Netherworld is a noteworthy title and a welcome addition to the shoot/collect-em-up genre.