| ★ AMSTRAD CPC ★ GAMESLIST ★ LEMMINGS (c) PSYGNOSIS ★ |
| A100% | Amstrad Action | JOYSTICK | TILT |
What a nice change. A game where the idea is to save lives, rather than destroy them. A puzzle game with a healthy dose of platforming and arcadey action. A game that has already made history on other computers, and is about to do the same on the CPC. Lemmings is a furiously addictive escapade that puts you 'in charge' of a posse of sweet, but stupid, little mammals. These mammals (called, strangely enough, lemmings) fall one by one from a trap door in the ceiling. Their target is a stone clad archway elsewhere on the level. Getting them there, without losing more than the specified number, is the aim of the game.
Various obstacles present them selves and you have to try and get your little friends past them all. There are various functions that can be bestowed on the lemmings, and these appear as icons at the bottom of the screen. Selecting the right combination of functions is the only way to solve the puzzles. So how does it differ from the 16-bit versions? Well, ifs smaller. The Amiga version has got over 160 levels, and the CPC versh has nowhere near that many. A rival magazine recently announced that there were 80 levels in the game, and they then went on to compound the embarrassment by setting a competition where "how many levels are there in CPC Lemmings?" was the question. Whoops! If you believed their review, you got the answer wrong. There are actually only 60 levels in this game, and these are divided into four batches of fifteen (Fun, Tricky, Taxing and Mayhem). Some of the levels are shorter than their 16-bit compatriots, and a few puzzles have been left out because they were too complex. People who have experience of 16-bit Lemmings might notice another difference, that of the control method. The expensive machine versions use a mouse, whereas the CPC versh is joystick-controlled. This means that it's less a case of whizzing round the screen to click on loads of different lems, and more a case of lugging the joystick into position as quickly as possible to click on a single lemming. Having said all that, this has to rank as one of the best conversions ever. The comic animation and the atmosphere of the original have been maintained, though things are obviously more laid-back (being slower). The graphics are brilliant, especially since we were half expecting a Speccy port, and the sound is quite polished. Basically, Lemmings is regarded as the best computer game of all-time, and the Amstrad version is everything we could have wanted. There's enough of a challenge to keep you plugging away for ages, too. Though the Fun levels are very easy, things then start getting very complex, and there are some nightmarish time limits. CPC Lemmings is as stylish and as frighteningly addictive as any other version, though it may be a little over-priced (£16 on tape!). Whether ifs the best CPC game of all time is a question that could only be settled with extreme violence.
AA |
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