Review: Oh No! More Lemmings
by Kevin M. Savetz

Type:
Puzzle
Publisher: Psygnosis (617/497-5457)
Retail Price: $49.99
Mail Order:
$35.00
Requires:
 Any Mac, hard disk (with 1 MB free.) For color — System 6.0.5 or later and 2MB RAM, or System 7 or later with 4 MB RAM. For black & white: System 6.1 or later and 2 MB RAM, or System 7 or later with 2.5 MB RAM.
Protection: Manual-based lookup 

OH NO! The little green-haired guys are back, and they’re as dumb as ever. 

The original Lemmings was a marvelous game. How marvelous? I don’t like to tell this story, because it makes people think I’m antisocial: the first time I played Lemmings was when I visited my friend Dan at UC Santa Cruz. I was there for about a week, and every day while Dan was in class, I would sit in his dorm room alone, playing Lemmings — sometimes for ten or 12 hours at a time. My eyeballs fused with his Amiga monitor, and an addict was born. I didn’t see much of Dan that week, but I had a good time.

Oh No! More Lemmings follows in the footsteps of its predecessor, providing 100 new levels for your green-headed pals to explore. Loyal Lemmingites will be happy to know that game play is identical to the first version — the lemmings walk, climb, dig — and splat — in their old, familiar ways.

If you missed Lemmings the first time around, don’t despair. You didn’t have to see the first one for the sequel to make sense. The goal of each level is to get the lemmings from their starting place to a goal location — unharmed. Who would want to hurt a lemming? Mostly, the lemmings themselves, who (without your aid) will walk off the edge of a cliff or under a lemming-smoosher trap, blissfully ignorant of their peril. Fear not, for the lemmings are not without recourse. You are able to train individual lemmings to do such stunts as climbing, digging, building bridges, and (oh no!) exploding. By using some combination of these lemming tools, you must guide them unharmed from beginning to end. 

During the proceedings, some lemmings will surely drown, get smooshed, pureed, fried, folded, spindled, or mutilated. Happily (?!) it is not necessary to save every lemming on each level — but you must save a certain percentage before you are allowed to move on to the next screen. The puzzles range from very simple (at the early levels) to mind-bogglingly difficult (at higher levels.) You’ll find that saving lemmings requires a balance of puzzle-solving abilities, timing, and patience. Each level has a name, some of which are subtle clues on how to complete the level. The majority of them are just silly, however, including “Downwardly mobile lemming” “Rent-a-lemming,” and “Lemming tomato ketchup factory.” Mmm!

The program’s graphics aren’t eye-popping or dramatic, but they don’t need to be. Game elements are clear and recognizable, and the lemmings are stir-your-heart cute. The musical score adds yet another element of silliness to the game’s atmosphere. Even the manual is better than average, combining a readable explanation of the game with smatterings of wry wit. 

Lemmings looks best in 256-color mode. Unfortunately, if you start the game in any other color mode (for instance, 16 colors) Lemmings defaults to boring black-and-white. The program doesn’t even ask if you want to switch to 256-color mode. Another unfortunate problem for some users lies in the copy protection. When you run the program, it asks you to enter a certain code number from a specific manual page. This is annoying, but the program is designed to do this only once, unless the files are moved to a new folder or hard drive. Users of file compression programs like AutoDoubler will quickly find that Lemmings demands a code almost every time you run it: it seems that when AutoDoubler compresses the files, it fools Lemmings into thinking it’s moved. The solution is to force your compression program to leave Lemmings alone.

Lemmings is a wholly enjoyable game, from the first level to the exasperating end. If you play it too much, your friends will think you’re antisocial, but you’ll have a good time.

Pros
• Great puzzles, good sound and graphics
• True to the style of the original Lemmings
• Runs well in color and black-and-white

Cons
• Copy protection scheme conflicts with some compression programs
• 256 colors or black-and-white only.
• Really, really, addictive