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In
the big wide world of videogames old, or “retro”, titles are
often exhumed, some causing you to weep waterfall like tears of joy
(Super
Mario64 DS, Pac-Man Vs.) and others just make you cry
(Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition). Lemmings
from Team17 (creators of the Worms
series) on the other hand is a title that will make you do both. In
this puzzle game you have to guide your green hared, blue suited
rodents (or lemmings as the game likes to call them) to a Gate-Way
by commanding them to do various things, such as build a stairway or
bash though a wall, or even give them a little umbrella to parachute
from distant heights. However, along the way there are various traps
and pitfalls for your plucky but rather stupid rodents. Snare-traps,
flame-throwers and, my personal favourite, the crushers all commonly
provide a challenge.
The
game has a grand total of one-hundred and ninety-two Maps of various
difficulties already on the UMD and you are also given the option of
downloading additional maps from the PSP website. The Maps that can
be downloaded are either Official Maps designed by the Team17
development staff, or if you feeling like torturing your fellow man
you can create your own Maps and post them on the website for
downloading by other gamers.
Lemmings
employs itself with a simple gameplay mechanic. Each of your
critters falls from a window in the sky and will benefit from
perpetual motion. This consistent need to move often will result in
their own demise; unless you intervene. Through the use of Commands
selected from a Menu Bar emblazed across the bottom of the screen,
you must overcome obstacles to ensure the required quota of the
quirky little freaks makes it to their desired destination: a
Gate-Way featured elsewhere on the Map.
Although
now being a grand fifteen years old, Lemmings still retains
some of the charm it held when some of us were playing it on the
Master System or Mega-Drive way back when – a philosophy that is
not only the games Unique Selling-Point, but also it’s undoing -
the main problem being that it is the same game I was playing
on the Master System all those years ago. Aside from the minor issue
of there being thirty-two new pre-installed Levels, the bulk  of the
game is comprised of the one-hundred and twenty original Levels. A
pretty poor show, not to mention the fact there are no new commands
that can be given to the lemmings. If you played Lemmings at
the original release, you’ll have no difficulty in steamrolling
through the game as there’s nothing new to provide challenge.
Also, for the newer players the difficulty curve in switching from
one Difficulty Level of a Map to the other is monstrous, and won’t
fail to frustrate as you attempt a Map for the millionth time. The
in-game music is like most things on this title exactly the same as
the older versions and only succeeds in frustrating the player more
rather that adding any sort of context to the game. Oh and just
in-case you were wondering, yes, there are Loading Times - which the
older consoles didn’t have - as it is a PSP after all. The Loading
Time isn’t that long in itself but it does have to load every time
you switch to another Map.
The
gameplay itself is as excellent now as it was originally, but the
preloaded Maps will have little to offer to people who have played
the game before - making the option of downloading further Maps a
necessity to people who have played older versions of the game.
On the
plus side the controls are fairly intuitive which helps new players
ease into the game nice and quickly. The Difficulty Level ramps up
quite quickly after you’ve passed the fun Maps, so the tailored
presentation is essential. The graphics used are good for the kind
of game Lemmings is; although Team17 isn’t going to win an
award for graphical excellence, they look pretty enough without
overshadowing the game itself.
Lemmings
is a good solid title that ports well on to the PSP and doesn’t
fail to deliver the short burst of fun that’s needed on a short
journey. However it fails to deliver anything more than that. The
controls have been well implemented and the title works with the PSP
quite well. There are a lot of things this title could have been,
but has ultimately failed to deliver anything but the game as seen
fifteen years ago.
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