Act: Juno Nemesis Remix [by Rod Smith]

Game: Juno Nemesis Remix
Release: 2003
Genre: Action
Developer: Rod Smith
Publisher:  Mountain King
System Requirements: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP, Pentium II or better, 64 MB RAM, DirectX 7.0
Price: US $15.95

“Inside cyberspace, there is a powerful supercomputer known only as Juno. Numerous vortexes lead to the innards of Juno and are staunchly defended against attackers. You are a defender of Juno.”

So goes the story of Juno Nemesis: Remix, an update to classic arcade games like Gyruss and Tempest that basically has you taking on the role of a bad-ass, laser wielding internet firewall trying to protect the CPU from script kiddies and bot attacks.

Joking aside, anyone who spent time in an arcade within the past 20 years should have no problem recognizing the game play. Using the mouse, keyboard or control pad you spiral your ship around the outer rim of the vortexes (or it is vortices?) shooting the enemies as they make their way towards you. If an enemy touches your ship or too many bullets hit you, you die. To add to the challenge, your own weapons will deplete your shield’s power so you can’t fire continuously – you must take care to time and aim your shots because each one counts.

There are crystals that allow you to unlock cheats and bonus games as well as numerous power ups that will add to your ship’s lethality for you to collect. Each level has it’s own boss enemies which add extra variety to the game play although their attack sequences are pretty similar.

Though great care has been taken to emulate the arcade experience not much has been done to expand upon it, even the mini-games are just derivatives of the same theme. While I found the action to get repetitive after time I can’t deny that Juno Nemesis Remix does a very good job of recapturing the look, sound and feel of the arcade classics that inspired it.

Graphics: 7
The graphics in Juno Nemesis Remix are reminiscent of 3D arcade games of late 90’s. While the level textures and certainly the enemy models, which are so low-polygon as to look like they were made of origami, could use more detail this minimalist styling does suit the game well. I would like to have seen more variety and “oomph!” in the particle effects when you kill the enemies. After all, Juno is a straight-up arcade shooter and while it delivers on the seemingly endless waves of enemies it should have delivered more visual effects to make all the killings worthwhile.

Styling aside, the 3D engine is silky smooth even on low-spec machines. While I would hesitate to call the graphics anything above average I’m scoring them a “7” because the developers struck a nice balance between graphical beauty and performance. Given a choice, I would take a game with average, low-polygon graphics but lighting fast performance over a graphical wonder that chugs along like bad stop-motion animation.

Sound: 8
Like the graphics, the sound effects are straight out of the arcade, consisting mostly of basic “warp-y tech-y” sci-fi sounds. I was less thrilled with the music tracks, which were the same generic techno you hear in almost every other shareware title these days. At the same time I can’t deny that the music works here and (as generic techno goes) the quality isn’t too bad. Generally, the sound design suits the game and you can almost imagine hearing it blaring out of the speakers of an arcade cabinet.

Gameplay: 7
Juno Nemesis Remix runs smoothly on virtually any reasonable spec machine. The controls are simple and responsive and the difficulty ramps up nicely as you progress through the game. I highly recommend using the mouse in “Classic” and not “Standard” mode for more intuitive control. I encountered no bugs at all in completing the game.

Options: 8
There are plenty of options that allow you to customize the game to your tastes, mostly the usual audio, display, difficulty and control settings. Juno Nemesis Remix is divided into levels made up of waves of enemies and thankfully once a level has been completed you no longer have to play it, even if you die. You can instead choose to restart at the next level instead of having to play from the beginning each time. There are also 18 “cheats” that can be unlocked to give you a better chance of finishing the game, although in using the cheats you won’t be able to unlock any mini-games.

The only option that seemed conspicuously absent is the ability to play the game in windowed mode. Juno would be the perfect game to have running in the background as an occasional distraction while working on other things. As it stands you can always ALT-TAB out of the game but that’s no substitute for the convenience of a true windowed mode.

Value: 6
I have some hesitancy in calling Juno Nemesis Remix a “value” at this price point. This is an arcade shooter after all and a remake of earlier games like Gyruss and Tempest; it’s even marketed as such. $15 dollars buys you 60 games of Gyruss (or whatever) at the arcade. It took me a little over 4 days of playing (off an on) to beat Juno and that 60 “tries” sounds about right. So from a pure financial standpoint Juno is a break-even value with the arcade. Add in the bonus games, cheats and the convenience of playing a quality arcade game from my PC and the end result is that Juno Nemesis Remix is an average value but not much more than that, especially given the heavy competition in the “arcade shooter” category.

Fun: 7
Juno Nemesis Remix is a remake (or is that a remix of a remake?) so obviously we know the gameplay works and that there is some fun to be had blowing away waves of enemies. It’s a classic arcade formula that’s worked for going on 30 years now. There are some issues with the repetitiveness of it all, but really Juno is as good an arcade fix as you’ll ever find for your PC.

Overall: 7
Juno Nemesis Remix is able to hold it’s own even in the face of heavy competition in the arcade shooter market. While it doesn’t have the graphical polish or depth that some other current shooters possess it does have a nice nostalgic feel to it without being too “campy”. It delivers smooth, white-knuckle arcade action and just enough play value to feel like you’ve gotten your money’s worth out of it. I certainly recommend downloading the demo and if you like what you see then making the purchase. Arcade fans won’t be disappointed.Added: August 3rd 2004
Reviewer: Kyle Nau
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