Lemmings: Difference between revisions

[[File:lemmings.png|frame|So many lemmings, so little time...]]

 

 

{{quote|''"'''WARNING:''' We are not responsible for:

 

What long-time gamers will ultimately remember about the '''''Lemmings''''' games is their ingenuity. How many different ways are there to endanger the lives of a band of green-haired rodents willing to tromp blindly along whatever paths you lay for them? ''[[Video Game Cruelty Potential|Thousands]]''. In game after game, the developers, DMA Design (you probably know them better by their later name, [[Take Two Interactive|Rockstar North]]), proved they could come up with hundreds of variations on this simple theme.

* ''The Adventures of Lomax'', a pure [[Platform Game]] and [[Spiritual Successor]] to the non-''Lemmings'' game ''The Misadventures of Flink''.

* ''Lemmings'' on PSP was a remake of the original, with a very nice graphical overhaul and added level editor. It was later ported to [[PlayStation 2]] where it gained a number of Eyetoy levels where players use their body to form a path

* And various spin-offs or rip-offs by other companies, that generally nobody's ever heard of, such as ''Critters''.

 

* [[Choose Your Own Adventure]]: Two gamebooks, based on ''The Tribes'', were published. Success revolved around choosing the right selection of abilities to bring into each area.

* [[Continuity Nod]]: ''Lemmings 2: The Tribes'''s intro references having saved the lemmings to bring them to their present homeland with an elder talking to a child, ending with the two lemmings [[Aside Glance|turning to face]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TJeZCp6CaY#t=3m58s "the guide who saved us before"] -- you.

** The first 20 levels of ''Oh No! More Lemmings'' are painfully easy and can be solved with minimal effort. Once you get out of the Tame difficulty setting, however, the game instantly becomes [[Nintendo Hard]] and doesn't let up until you've finished.

** In ''Lemmings 2: The Tribes'', generally, the ten levels of each tribe gradually increase in difficulty. However, for some reason, the game designers saw fit to make the painfully hard "Snow More Lems" the ''third'' level of the Polar Tribe.

* [[Dungeon Bypass]]: Multiple levels can be solved in a completely unintended way, e.g. by bashing inside the floor and under the whole level. (This is the mildest example; often, these backroutes require the use of [[Good Bad Bugs]]. Sometimes, they are also more difficult [or MUCH more difficult] than the regular solution, but allow you to save more lemmings.) There's also at least one completely intentional alternate solution: "Cascade" (see below).

* [[Embedded Precursor]]: ''Lemmings Paintball'' came bundled with Windows-compatible versions of the original ''Lemmings'' and ''Oh No! More Lemmings''. Arguably, more people bought the game for this bonus than for the featured game, especially since ''ONML'' had already fallen out of print at the time.

* [[Fake Difficulty]]: The [[Luck-Based Mission|randomness]] that arises from trying to assign a skill to a lemming out of a large group moving in opposite directions. Bashing through the wrong wall, for example, could easily send the entire group plummeting to their doom.

** In ''Lemmings 3D'', one tool allowed you to click on a specific lemming amidst a group to highlight it, and ''then'' assign a skill.

** In ''Lemmings Revolution'', you can pause the game and zoom in really close, making it a lot easier.

* [[Feelies]]: ''Lemmings 2'' (the Amiga version at least) included a prologue in the form of an honest-to-god, colour-illustrated [http://lemnet.tripod.com/english-chronicles/info/books/index.html children's book] about the somewhat inept Jimmy B. McLemming's mission to warn the other tribes to bring their talismans.

* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: The level titled "What a load of old blocks!"

* [[Hard Mode Filler]]: The first game was particularly bad about making you replay early levels, only with the challenge made more difficult in some way, usually by either shortening the amount of time you have to complete the level or giving you a more limited set of skills to work with (or both). Sort of an inversion, in fact, as the hard versions were created first. However, the designers realized they needed a lot more easy levels than what they had, so they took a lot of the hard ones they had created and reduced the difficulty, then placed the easy levels first in the game.

* [[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming]]: Each level designer had a different theme for the names they gave their levels. Mike Dailly's titles were hints to what the player needed to do, while Gary Timmons made titles based on pop culture references.

* [[Malevolent Architecture]]: In ''Lemmings 2'', the Space Tribe levels have [[Thrown Out the Airlock|airlock doors]] that are triggered merely by ''walking past them''.

* [[Nintendo Hard]]

* [[No Animals Were Harmed]]: In the end credits of the SNES version of ''Lemmings 2'', complete with [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]''.

* [[Nostalgia Level]]: The Classic Tribe in ''Lemmings 2'', complete with skills, backgrounds and music from the original game. More subtly, they explode like the originals (they explode into shrapnel and don't affect nearby Lemmings) and don't have the period of being stunned when falling which was also a new addition for the sequel.

* [[Not the Fall That Kills You]]: If you can turn a lemming into a Floater before impact with the ground, you're golden. Doesn't matter how close it was.

* [[Number of the Beast]]: The infamous Tricky Level 21, "All the 6's......", removed or renamed in several versions. The level takes the shape of three giant 6s, the Lemmings have 66 of each skill, 66% of 66 Lemmings must be saved, and the player has, you guessed it, 6 minutes to save them. The title is a reference to Bingo.

* [[One-Hit-Point Wonder]]: Lemmings cannot survive ''anything''. Except for walking. And some falls. And explosions caused by other lemmings.

* [[Schmuck Bait]]: Any level that requires you to save 100% and still gives you the Bomber skill. Although you can save bombers in ''Revolutions'', as mentioned under [[Pause Scumming]].

* [[Sequel Difficulty Spike]]: ''Oh No! More Lemmings''

** Four levels in the original PC release use graphics from and are named after other Psygnosis games of the time, including ''[[Shadow of the Beast]]''. In addition, many of the level names contain pop culture references, especially in ONML.

** And the Sega Mega Drive version, developed by Sunsoft, includes an exclusive level based on Sunsoft's NES game ''[[Ufouria]]''.

** ''Lemmings 2: The Tribes'': In most versions of the game, the Space Tribe has a rendition of "Blue Danube" as its background music, in reference to ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey]]''.

** In ''3D Lemmings''.

** Additionally, the Polar levels in ''Lemmings 2'', which featured slippery ice that would cause the lemmings to fall without the Skater skill.

* [[Trial and Error Gameplay]]: Death traps without any indication to their existence? How nice. Bonus points for putting it a few pixels before the exit.

* [[Unwinnable By Mistake]]: One of the levels in ''Lemmings Revolution'' is unwinnable; the platform the Lemmings start on is too high for them to survive the fall from, and you need to save all of them to complete the level. Do the math. It's fixable via a fanmade patch, although thankfully the nonlinear structure of the game means you never have to play the offending level in the first place.

* [[Video Game Caring Potential]]: Saving 100% (or as much as possible) of the lemmings in each level, regardless of what is required for success. Just try going for the perfect solution in "Cascade" (otherwise an example of the following trope, as the obvious solution is to save 10 lemmings out of 80 and let the rest splat), or in "Upsidedown World" (at the start of which you have to turn the lemmings round on a very thin ledge -- easy if you use a blocker, but then you lose one). To be specific, out of the 120 levels in the original game, 101 are possible to genuinely save every lemming on, and two more can be 100%ed via a glitch. Many of them, however, are very hard to do so.

** "Oh no!" ''pop pop pop pop pop!'' In theory, the Nuke button is there to quickly shortcut to the results screen if the final result is known (either a guaranteed success or [[Unwinnable|failure]]). From almost the beginning, players have enjoyed instead using it because they enjoy watching every lemming pop in an explosion of confetti. The chorus of "Oh no!" heard when activating this is just the satisfying icing on the cake.

** Don't forget how fun it is to watch them get mangled in the various traps... or fall from a great height and go SPLAT.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Amiga]]

[[Category:Apple II]]

[[Category:Apple Macintosh]]

[[Category:Commodore 64]]

[[Category:Game Boy]]

[[Category:Game Gear]]

[[Category:PC-98]]