Hours upon hours of ingenious puzzles to solve. This is the first game I remember playing.
Hilarious and maddening
é um daqueles jogos tão simples que até uma criança entende o básico, que vai se expandindo em complexidade até que se torna deliciosamente complicado. acho que só não dou 5 estrelas por skill issue mesmo.
Let's be honest, if you're seeing this review, you know what this game is, and have almost certainly played it or one of the many sequels/remakes. This review is actually about the 1995 Windows bundle of Lemmings and Oh No, More Lemmings, but this version of the game is the most popular one for reviews so I left it here.
Anyway, I would say that maybe 50% of the levels are either way too easy or way too hard strategically, leaving roughly half of them as actually entertaining puzzles that you would want to replay.
Additionally the game often leaves you in a state where you've spent ages working on a level and still have to restart it completely because you used one too many power-ups or have one too few lemmings, which is frankly infuriating.
But yeah this was life in the 90s. As if people moan about games today. We've come so far guys trust me.
Anyway, I would say that maybe 50% of the levels are either way too easy or way too hard strategically, leaving roughly half of them as actually entertaining puzzles that you would want to replay.
Additionally the game often leaves you in a state where you've spent ages working on a level and still have to restart it completely because you used one too many power-ups or have one too few lemmings, which is frankly infuriating.
But yeah this was life in the 90s. As if people moan about games today. We've come so far guys trust me.
soundtrack slaps
I don't think you will find better (level) music on any other Amiga game.
Also, who will ever forget the first time they click on that nuke button...
A true sadistic classic.
Also, who will ever forget the first time they click on that nuke button...
A true sadistic classic.
De pequeño nunca entendí este juego.
The CPC version had five time less Lemmings but remained quite hard and fun. Also the levels had no animations or level hazards like flame throwers etc.
One of 4 DOS games my Dad got for us as kids to play on our Windows 3.1 computer.
I've always wanted to own/play this game. Now I do, and I'm enjoying it. :)
One of the games from my past that I could still spend days with looking at the creatures mining!
(This is the 37th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
I'm going to guess and say that the majority of you have played this game or, more likely, a game that is pretty similar to the idea that Lemmings puts forward, a puzzle(-strategy) game by DMA Design, initially released on February 14th, 1991 and ported to dozens of systems after its success as an Amiga game. I played the SNES version for this review.
FUN FACT: DMA Design, the developer, today goes by the somewhat known name Rockstar North and are creators of the GTA series.
____________
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS
You control Lemmings, which do exist in real life (small rodents). In this game, they are anthropomorphized, meaning they walk upright and can do human tasks like digging, climbing, jumping down whilst holding an umbrella etc.
There is a misconception in pop culture that Lemmings commit "mass suicide", something the devs seem to have chosen as inspiration for creating this game.
In this game, all lemmings are identical copies of each other, you simply can change their behavior by equipping them with a certain task/skill like the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph.
The goal of every level is to rescue at least a certain percentage of all Lemmings that are present in a given level. Once you do that, you can try to rescue the rest or have them blow themselves up and end the level.
Every time the puzzles go up in difficulty level, a little cutscene plays showing the Lemmings move across the screen.
I feel like there was some potential here for these little guys to have a bigger name across gaming than they ended up having because they do offer a certain charm.
But as far as storytelling goes, the game doesn't offer anything beyond the basic goal of each level.
GAMEPLAY
There are up to 120 levels depending on the port you play that are spread between four difficulty levels. In each level, a door opens that releases a set number of Lemmings. The game tells you how many of them you need to save to beat the level.
The lemmings move forward at all times, no matter what, and if there is something that blocks their path, they simply turn around and go the other way. You are equipped with a bunch of "tasks" that you can give to the lemmings and your job is to choose the correct ones, at the correct times and in the proper order to successfully send enough Lemmings to the exit.
For example, in the first level, you have to give your Lemmings the "digging" task, which makes them start digging up the ground beneath them. This opens up a path to the exit once they're done.
With each level, it starts getting more and more complicated of course. You need to mix multiple tasks up at once, figure out how to make a lemming cancel his task to help him escape as well, and well, ultimately decide how much you value your time.
Because as creative as the game design is, and as much fun it is to figure out the solution, it often is not the path to the solution that is hard to figure out. It is the wait.
Once you have the solution, like for example digging open the ground beneath your lemmings, you now have to wait. and wait. and wait until they all slowly make their way to the finish line. I am not joking if I say that it takes minutes a lot of times for things to play out like you already know it will.
I've played for a few hours and a too significant amount of that was spent waiting instead of solving puzzles or applying the correct strategy. That made the game significantly less enjoyable that it probably would be in a more modern release where your characters would probably start moving much faster once the game knows that you opened up the winning path.
It doesn't help that later on, levels often became repetitive and, when checking a YT playthrough, I realized it just ended up being more or less the same over and over again, so I decided that I saw enough after a few hours.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
Voice acting is limited to some high-pitched noises and a few words. "Yippie", "Let's go", "Oh no" are things you will hear quite often, but generally the Lemmings remain pretty silent in this one. The soundtrack features some nice music, including a remix of Jacques Offenbach's "Infernal Galop".
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The graphics aren't anything special in this one, but the animations are really good for its time. The way the Lemmings hair flies from side to side as they keep digging for example is really detailed.
ATMOSPHERE
Nothing special that I want to mention in this regard. The artistic design of the levels, the kinda cutesy Lemmings, the noises they make, the music, it all combines to make a game with a cozy enough atmosphere but one that can stress you out pretty fast if you ever are stuck with any particular level, especially since it means you will have to blow everyone up to restart.
CONTENT
120 levels, gets repetitive. Too much time is spent waiting on the Lemmings to walk around, too little on actually doing puzzles. It's an effective brainteaser but doesn't translate to a whole lot of fun at too many times.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
You have all those skills I mentioned at your disposal and try to figure out which ones to use and at which point. Some levels only allow you to use specific skills and all require you to get a certain number of Lemmings to safety on each level. It's fun, but the design does get a bit repetitive over time. More skills obviously would mean more variety. The amount available here doesn't really seem to support 120 levels whilst keeping it fresh.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
Obviously very innovative in its design, even if it doesn't always translate to a lot of fun. Especially once you figure out how to do a puzzle and are stuck waiting for minutes for your Lemmings to get a move on, the design shows its cracks. But the design could have been taken a number of different directions from here on out, and I'll be honest, as of now I don't know what happened to the series and if there are any spiritual successors.
REPLAYABILITY
Pretty high. You can keep replaying to try and get more Lemmings out of a level, and you can even try your hand at figuring out how to get 100% of them out each time. It involves some advanced techniques that I didn't figure out myself, and one that adds a lot more waiting time to your playthrough, but it may be a worthwhile reward for people with plenty of patience and resilience.
PLAYABILITY
It works well from start to finish.
OVERALL
I can appreciate the game for its innovation. Unfortunately the way this is designed makes for a slow affair because a lot of the time playing this game is spent waiting for the Lemmings to go from A to B. More QoL improvements in later versions maybe have resulted in cleaner and faster experiences, but as it stands, this game was definitely way more enjoyable in the past than it is today, at least if you're a newcomer to this type of puzzle game.
I'm going to guess and say that the majority of you have played this game or, more likely, a game that is pretty similar to the idea that Lemmings puts forward, a puzzle(-strategy) game by DMA Design, initially released on February 14th, 1991 and ported to dozens of systems after its success as an Amiga game. I played the SNES version for this review.
FUN FACT: DMA Design, the developer, today goes by the somewhat known name Rockstar North and are creators of the GTA series.
____________
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS
You control Lemmings, which do exist in real life (small rodents). In this game, they are anthropomorphized, meaning they walk upright and can do human tasks like digging, climbing, jumping down whilst holding an umbrella etc.
There is a misconception in pop culture that Lemmings commit "mass suicide", something the devs seem to have chosen as inspiration for creating this game.
In this game, all lemmings are identical copies of each other, you simply can change their behavior by equipping them with a certain task/skill like the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph.
The goal of every level is to rescue at least a certain percentage of all Lemmings that are present in a given level. Once you do that, you can try to rescue the rest or have them blow themselves up and end the level.
Every time the puzzles go up in difficulty level, a little cutscene plays showing the Lemmings move across the screen.
I feel like there was some potential here for these little guys to have a bigger name across gaming than they ended up having because they do offer a certain charm.
But as far as storytelling goes, the game doesn't offer anything beyond the basic goal of each level.
GAMEPLAY
There are up to 120 levels depending on the port you play that are spread between four difficulty levels. In each level, a door opens that releases a set number of Lemmings. The game tells you how many of them you need to save to beat the level.
The lemmings move forward at all times, no matter what, and if there is something that blocks their path, they simply turn around and go the other way. You are equipped with a bunch of "tasks" that you can give to the lemmings and your job is to choose the correct ones, at the correct times and in the proper order to successfully send enough Lemmings to the exit.
For example, in the first level, you have to give your Lemmings the "digging" task, which makes them start digging up the ground beneath them. This opens up a path to the exit once they're done.
With each level, it starts getting more and more complicated of course. You need to mix multiple tasks up at once, figure out how to make a lemming cancel his task to help him escape as well, and well, ultimately decide how much you value your time.
Because as creative as the game design is, and as much fun it is to figure out the solution, it often is not the path to the solution that is hard to figure out. It is the wait.
Once you have the solution, like for example digging open the ground beneath your lemmings, you now have to wait. and wait. and wait until they all slowly make their way to the finish line. I am not joking if I say that it takes minutes a lot of times for things to play out like you already know it will.
I've played for a few hours and a too significant amount of that was spent waiting instead of solving puzzles or applying the correct strategy. That made the game significantly less enjoyable that it probably would be in a more modern release where your characters would probably start moving much faster once the game knows that you opened up the winning path.
It doesn't help that later on, levels often became repetitive and, when checking a YT playthrough, I realized it just ended up being more or less the same over and over again, so I decided that I saw enough after a few hours.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
Voice acting is limited to some high-pitched noises and a few words. "Yippie", "Let's go", "Oh no" are things you will hear quite often, but generally the Lemmings remain pretty silent in this one. The soundtrack features some nice music, including a remix of Jacques Offenbach's "Infernal Galop".
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The graphics aren't anything special in this one, but the animations are really good for its time. The way the Lemmings hair flies from side to side as they keep digging for example is really detailed.
ATMOSPHERE
Nothing special that I want to mention in this regard. The artistic design of the levels, the kinda cutesy Lemmings, the noises they make, the music, it all combines to make a game with a cozy enough atmosphere but one that can stress you out pretty fast if you ever are stuck with any particular level, especially since it means you will have to blow everyone up to restart.
CONTENT
120 levels, gets repetitive. Too much time is spent waiting on the Lemmings to walk around, too little on actually doing puzzles. It's an effective brainteaser but doesn't translate to a whole lot of fun at too many times.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
You have all those skills I mentioned at your disposal and try to figure out which ones to use and at which point. Some levels only allow you to use specific skills and all require you to get a certain number of Lemmings to safety on each level. It's fun, but the design does get a bit repetitive over time. More skills obviously would mean more variety. The amount available here doesn't really seem to support 120 levels whilst keeping it fresh.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
Obviously very innovative in its design, even if it doesn't always translate to a lot of fun. Especially once you figure out how to do a puzzle and are stuck waiting for minutes for your Lemmings to get a move on, the design shows its cracks. But the design could have been taken a number of different directions from here on out, and I'll be honest, as of now I don't know what happened to the series and if there are any spiritual successors.
REPLAYABILITY
Pretty high. You can keep replaying to try and get more Lemmings out of a level, and you can even try your hand at figuring out how to get 100% of them out each time. It involves some advanced techniques that I didn't figure out myself, and one that adds a lot more waiting time to your playthrough, but it may be a worthwhile reward for people with plenty of patience and resilience.
PLAYABILITY
It works well from start to finish.
OVERALL
I can appreciate the game for its innovation. Unfortunately the way this is designed makes for a slow affair because a lot of the time playing this game is spent waiting for the Lemmings to go from A to B. More QoL improvements in later versions maybe have resulted in cleaner and faster experiences, but as it stands, this game was definitely way more enjoyable in the past than it is today, at least if you're a newcomer to this type of puzzle game.
Massa
My personal favorite version of this Amiga-originating puzzler. Sunsoft brought their A-game in porting this game to Sega's fourth-gen platform.
B+
PBs:
30:05 (Fun)
54:26 (Tricky)
B+
PBs:
30:05 (Fun)
54:26 (Tricky)
Played this on a Spectrum. It was monochrome, and levels had to be loaded from a tape one at a time. Failing a level meant rewinding the tape a bit, but there was no counter on my tape deck, so there was a guesswork minigame built-in too. I was okay at the main game and great at the tape guessing game.
a timeless puzzle game that's managed to find itself onto every console known to man. i probably have a calculator that can run lemmings in some capacity