Nebulus 2

STORY / GAMEPLAY
As on the original Nebulus, Pogo (a small green blob with no arms) must make his way to the top of the slowly rotating towers and claim them back from the evil Uncle (!) Once he reaches there, he has to return way back down again to repair all the damage inflicted by Uncle. When Pogo reaches to the bottom, he then hops into a chopper and flies to the next tower, via an obligatory bonus stage. The bonus stages are sequences in which Pogo pilots his chopper through clouds, collecting bonuses and avoiding enemies or travels with his small submarine again collecting bonuses and avoiding underwater mines and other hazards or riding a horse (a kind of horse actually) like a cowboy on a ground tour to collect bonuses and avoid dead pits and deadly rocks. Nebulus 2 includes a total of 8 towers swarmed by nefarious monsters. Fortunately there are several power-ups (in contrast to the first Nebulus) like jet-packs that can rocket Pogo around the tower, killing everything in his path, magnets and jumping boots that can lift Pogo to certain platforms, and more. The towers have some locked doors as well, so Pogo must find certain keys to unlock and get through them.
Much like Nebulus, a collision with a monster won't kill you but it will knock you off your perch and send you down a few platforms (which is rather annoying if it took you 10-20 minutes to get up there!) Nebulus 2 is a neat game, with nice visuals and unique but tough gameplay.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The graphics are really beautiful and very colorful. In fact they are too colorful and you may easily notice that the palette exceeds the 32 colors Amiga standards. Actual screenshots show 80 to 110 simultaneous colors which is rather impressive. The animation is smooth and helps make the game easier to play. The flying, ground and underwater bonus stages are cool enough, offering a classic 2D horizontal-scrolling gameplay, again with an impressive number of background color shadings.
The sound is good, clear and crispy and consists of some nice sampled sound effects like the atmospheric howling winds as you go higher, the lifts' clanks and creaks, the magnets' hums and clangs when they hit a platform, and more. Unfortunately there is no in-game music on the tower stages but only on the bonus stages whilst there is a nicely composed introductory tune at the main menu.