Lemmings Reviews

Obviously, having created this entire site about Lemmings, I'd review the game quite favourably. So, instead of just saying "Lemmings is great!" repeatedly, the purpose of this page is to identify the differences between Lemmings on its various available platforms.

Commodore Amiga

Screenshots
Intro sequence	Main menu	Level intro	1-player view	2-player view

This is the platform that Lemmings was originally designed for and, for the most part, all others have been based on it.

The Amiga version was also the one that introduced me to Lemmings, and it didn't take me long realize "Hey, this Lemmings game is great!" (whoops, sorry). Anyway, I'll go into specifics of the good things about the Amiga version now.

The first advantage the Amiga has over most of the console versions is having the mouse as main controller. The freedom the mouse gives you to quickly scroll around and accurately click on lemmings simply cannot be given by any other controller. That's certainly not to say lemmings isn't worth playing on a non-mouse system, but if you have the choice to play with the mouse, I'd definitely recommended it for the best Lemmings experience.

Secondly, I'd choose the two-player mode, though of course if you have no one who wants to play with you, this doesn't really matter. If you do, you'll find that the two-player game offers a whole new dimension of lemmings entertainment. Well, at least for one of the players, anyway. Playing it requires a lot of patience and a mindset different from the single-player game, as the goal is not just to get your lemmings to the exit, but the most lemmings in the game as possible. This will involve trying to get your opponents lemmings to your exit too, as he or she tries the same with yours.

Anyway, only few systems have this, and when they do, it's using a split-screen without no access to a map or the release rate. Not quite the modern-day multiplayer game, really. As far as I know, there's also never been a network option version or anything, nor do any of the sequel games have a multiplayer option...well, paintball lemmings does, but that's quite a different game altogether.

Back to the single-player game, the Amiga version includes a cute little intro, 120 levels (there's 20 for multiplayer) of which four use the graphics and music of other Psygnosis games. They're pretty cool levels even if you've never heard of or played those games (see the codes&level info page to find them, they've the ones in the yellow font).

There isn't really a storyline to the original Lemmings (it starts in Lemmings 2), and the ending feels a little disappointing if you've played all 120 levels to get there...But hey, it's a puzzle game, so what do you really expect? Some of the sequels do have more rewarding end sequences though.

I've felt little to complain about the level-design of Lemmings, starting at the first Fun level and playing from there nicely introduces you to all the features of the game without putting you in impossible situations. I've read one review somewhere of someone who said one would start tearing out hair after a couple of levels and that it would require an impossible amount of patience to play all levels...perhaps having started at a young age gave me more patience, but even today I think the game is quite do-able. Sure, you'll get stuck every now and then, but the feeling you get after having figured out the problem to me is worth the frustration.

Now, on the subject of frustration, the *gasp* bad things about Lemmings! Yes, there's a few of them...mostly based on improvements included in the sequels... Primarily, going back to playing Lemmings I miss the fast-forward button (which they add in L2 and all games beyond it)...increasing the release rate to maximum is good, but...just not enough at times. The next thing would be the quick restart button. Instead of there being one of these, one must go through two dialog screens to just restart the level you're playing.

Finally, there's an action-replay function in Windows lemmings and Lemmings 3, which very usefully lets the computer redo everything you did previously, but allowing you to step in where you wish to do something differently. But hey, you can hardly blame the people of the early 90's for not having implemented this, the game itself was took up enough resources for some systems as it was.

PC (DOS)

Screenshots (VGA mode)
(no Intro sequence)	Main menu	Level intro	1-player view	(no 2-player option)