We analyze Nemesis: Lockdown, the sequel to the hit 2018 board game
The situation is as follows: You are in a hidden research base on Mars. Someone worked for the Company aboard the Nemesis and managed to divert the ship’s path so that it ended up crashing on the surface of the red planet. Only a couple of survivors are in the quarantine room where the scientists have been doing whatever they want with them for several days, oblivious to any international law. But something is wrong. You don’t know what, but something came aboard the ship along with the crew… and now it’s running free around the base. To top it off the generator has started to fail and some sectors are running out of light. There aren’t many ways to leave the facility and most of them involve staying in isolation awaiting help, but the alternative seems to be the death at the hands of strange creatures that lurk in the dark.
For those who are not very clear where they have landed; Nemesis is a board game in which we play the crew of the ship of the same name and in which we must find a way to survive the alien infestation that runs through it. To do this, it will not be enough to arrive alive at the end of the game, we will have to make sure that the ship’s engines work and that it is heading to Earth (unless our personal objectives indicate otherwise). And who knows, not everyone in the crew may share your same motivations. Definitely one of the best games in recent years, tense and exhausting as well as epic and loaded with moments where all the players cling to the edge of the table pending a single roll of the dice.
The Nemesis formula is simple but well thought out. Explore the rooms that make up the ship in search of equipment, weapons and complete our personal objectives while trying to make as little noise as possible to avoid attracting the attention of unwanted passengers. Anyone who has played exploration and combat tabletop games will feel right at home with Nemesis. AND Anyone who has enjoyed watching space horror movies or video games like Alien, Dead Space, Final Horizon or Pitch Black will be amazed. over and over again reliving moments traced to those of the cinema. The hidden traitor mechanic (not always present) added an almost infinite replayability along with some expansions that varied the enemies to include in the game.
But we’ve come to talk about its sequel, Nemesis: Lockdown, right? It seemed necessary to dedicate a couple of paragraphs to the original game since in this installment the entire playable core of the original has remained almost unchanged. Anyone who knows how to play the original Nemesis will have no problem making the jump to Lockdown. So, is it worth getting the Mars game over the spaceship game? Definitely. The new darkness mechanics (which not only make the new enemies, the Nightstalkers, even deadlier but will greatly limit what we can and can’t do in different sections of the base), new (and even more difficult) ways to escape of the base, the new investigation mechanics of the alien race, the computer actions (which are added to the already numerous actions of the different rooms of the complex), the elevator to change levels and the final contingency of the computer central (who will decide to eliminate certain players who do not meet certain requirements that we will have to find out during the game). All this makes the usual Nemesis sits completely different.
Not only do I think any self-respecting Nemesis fan should have both flavors in their collection. It’s that I think that the original is still the best entry point for novice players. If the original squeezed beautifully but did not suffocate, in Nemesis: Lockdown things do not improve, and we will even notice how the amount of air that enters our lungs is even less. The adventure on Mars is even more difficult than the original, and it’s not like that was exactly a walk. Not to mention, that a large number of components of both editions are perfectly interchangeable with each other. Being able to play with practically any alien race in any of the two scenarios with any selection of characters.
And it is that if the scenario of the Martian base gives us that perfect combination between familiarity and discovery, the same happens with the characters that we can carry. As it happened with the first Nemesis and its Aftermath expansion, they are perfectly playable with any of the versions, but where shine with their own light is in its corresponding edition. And in this case, I can’t resist dedicating a few lines to one of the new characters that deserve to be played in all their splendor in Nemesis: Lockdown. As is the case of the “guinea rabbit”, one of the survivors of the Nemesis who, in addition to being blind, has some kind of connection with the lethal creatures that populate the complex.
Is there something wrong with Nemesis: Lockdown? Unfortunately, yes, its price has skyrocketed a lot compared to what the first one cost (which was already quite an expensive title), rising from 150 to 190 euros. A factor that will undoubtedly affect the owners of the original delivery above all. And also, the store edition does not yet have (and we do not know if its release in the future is confirmed) the extra plant-based aliens (in the style of “The Day of the Triffids”) or the trinkets of the edition of Kickstarter.
After several years being one of my favorite games and probably one of the ones i have played the most; Not only do I feel confident that the situation will not change in the short term with a new installment to which I plan to give the same number of hours (or more if life allows me), but I feel excited knowing that this 2023 A third installment has been announced which, from what I’ve seen, will give me a lot of Nemesis again from here to who knows when.
