metzomagic.com Review

All New World Of Lemmings

Developer:  DMA Design
Publisher:  Psygnosis
Year Released:  1994

Review by Gordon Aplin (March, 1995)
lem3.jpg They're Back! Those cute, green-topped, suicidal rodents return to cause more sleepless nights. In this latest game from Psygnosis and DMA Design we get to follow the fortunes of three of the twelve tribes from Lemmings 2: The Tribes with the promise of more to come. Each of the tribes in this instalment, Classic, Egyptian and Shadow must traverse thirty levels ranging from the ridiculously easy - just to get you started - to the fiendishly difficult.

The object, as always, is to guide your lemmings home using builders, diggers, blockers, etc., losing as few as possible along the way. If you are a Lemmings addict like me you will, no doubt, resent losing even one and won't be satisfied with less than a one hundred percent success rate.

They're a little different
There have been a few changes since the previous game and your lemmings now only come with the ability to walk, jump and block, any other skill they need they literally pick up along the way. So you will find, scattered about the screen, shovels and bricks and numerous other tools and devices for you to use. Any lemming can now be a builder or whatever. If your first lemming should pick up bricks then it can only use, or pick up more, bricks. You can, however, click on the 'drop' icon to dispose of what it is carrying so that it can pick up a different item. In short, your lemming can carry an infinite number of shovels but not carry shovels and bricks at the same time. Got that?

Once your lemming has picked up an item - and they do this automatically as they walk past the object - you can click on the 'use' icon to get it to perform its task.

And they sparkle
Tired of losing your lemming in a crowd? A useful new feature is the ability to highlight the lemming you want to activate by clicking the right mouse button whilst the cursor is in the general area of your target. You don't need to be any more precise than that and your lemming with the bricks or whatever will be picked out in a rather stunning, red jump suit ready for your next command

Two further changes in the way you control your lemmings are also worth mentioning. The first is that you only need to click on a lemming to turn it around, the second is that you can now unblock a blocker simply by clicking on it with 'walker' highlighted, whereas previously it was necessary to dig it out or abandon it for the good of the many. This useful piece of information is actually contained in the manual under 'Walker' though I don't know of any experienced lemming-aider who would bother to read this. I didn't. Consequently, I attempted to play the first five levels of the Classic tribe without using a blocker and this is very difficult indeed, let me tell you

Not all of the new features are an unqualified success, however. The extra obstacles such as the Psycho Buzzard, Potato Beast and Lemme Fatale fell short of adding the variety the designers were obviously striving for. This is probably just as well because there was a danger that these 'features' would tend to make the game too much like an arcadeplatform romp rather than the puzzlestrategy challenge that we know and love.

If you have never played Lemmings before the concept is deceptively simple but the puzzles are challenging and extremely frustrating at times. Some people even claim to enjoy this self-inflicted punishment and pretend that it is fun, such is the nature of their addiction. I will probably keep playing Lemmings until they stop making the games though I must confess to feeling just a little disappointed with this effort.

metzomagic.com rating:  

Copyright © Gordon Aplin 1995. All rights reserved.

System requirements: 386SX20 or higher, 4MB RAM, CD-ROM.