Label: Psygnosis
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £10.00 Tape
Reviewer: Garth Sumpter
Eeeek! They're horrible, they're vile and they're savagely suicidal! It's the Lemmings and it's you job to try and keep the furry little critters from throwing themselves off the tops of deep caverns and gibing the Samaritans a big headache.
So there you are. You have a whole regiment of rodents, running around like a dose of diarrhoea in a nursery. Only the Lemmings are outside of the cruel world and don't seem to have the sense they were born with. They're seemingly bent on destruction - the only thing between them and certain extinction is you, and the clever use of some of the Lemmings innate specialist skills (yes they are innate, I saw a guinea pig parachute in Tales of the Riverbank when I was a kid.) Luckily these skills include rodent bridge builders, tunnellers, diggers (who dig holes as opposed to tunnels), blockers - so called because they hold back their comrades whilst you build a bride over a ravine and parachutists who boldly float down into uncharted territories to prepare the land for all those who follow...
Sounds strange?
Well it is, but it is very involved. Each level has a unique terrain, across which you must safely shepherd the rodents using the icons at the bottom of the screen. You select which type of lemming you need and then move back the main screen, choose a lemming, click on it and presto! The lemming will immediately take on the role that you have assigned. Perhaps building a bridge, digging a tunnel or even burrowing down through solid rock to pop out below the obstruction or ever spontaneously combusting!
Once all the dangers have been negotiated, the remaining lemmings (yes, I'm afraid that not all of them ever seem to make it, sob), will trundle up the steps of the 'rats, I've made it portal' and as long as you've made your quota of lemmings saved, then you'll be given the password for the level and you can load in the next.
Lemmings is one of the most original games to hit not only the Spectrum, but the whole computer games industry for some time and deserves to do well. It's a very difficult thing to be able to tell someone what the game is like because there's never really been anything like it, although I feel there will be a lot of games...
ALAN:
Not full of furious action, more like an arcade puzzle game, but none-the-less a marvellous, game to play.
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