Retro Review: Lemmings - Multi-platform - 1991

If I told you there was a video game based on an urban legend perpetuated by the mass murder of cute little arctic rodents by the Disney company in the 1950's would you think I was crazy.  However it is true.  The game is called Lemmings, and before getting into the game I should explain the backstory.

This is a real live non-suicidal lemming.  

     A lemming is a small rodent that lives in Arctic regions of the world.  A popular misconception arose about lemmings, that during migration they would commit mass suicide by jumping off the edge of a cliff into the sea.  In 1958 Disney released "White Wilderness" a nature documentary in which they showed lemmings plunging off of cliff sides to their eventual death.  Sadly this was only an attempt to romanticize these legends and led to many people believing that the lemming stories were true.  The footage of the lemming suicide was staged and the poor little creatures were either pushed or launched into achieve the footage that was in the  documentary.  Then the poor little bastards tried to swim away from the Disney masochists, not realizing that they weren't just in the lake.  I have included that footage below and you can see for yourself.

However the idea of little creatures walking blindly into impending doom did tum out to inspire a pretty good video game.  The original 1991 version was released for the Amiga due to the fact it had a mouse which really is the logical way to play the game.  However the game was so much fun, there has been a version released for damn near every game system I've ever owned.  There is a version for the following systems: Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Mac, NES, SNES, Turbo Grafx CD, Sega Master System, Atari Lynx, Sega Genesis, Commodore 64, Sega Game Gear, Game Boy, PSP, PS1, PS2, 3DO, CD-i, and a bunch more for some obscure old systems.

Several of our brave lemming friends must explode to allow the herd to make  it to safety in this level.

Lemmings worked on a simple platformer basis.  The lemmings would pop out of a trap door into some type of peril.  Left to their own devices the lemmings will just walk until they hit something and turn around and walk the other way, even if that path will lead to their doom.  There was a goal at the end of the level and your job was to teach several lemmings a particular skill to help pave the way for the others to reach the goal safely.

The entire name of the game is strategy and using the jobs that are given correctly.  Climbers obviously climb things.  Floaters deploy an umbrella to avoid death from falling from a distance.  Bombers blow up and destroy everything within a certain radius.  Blockers stay put and keep other lemmings from passing.  Builders build 12 stairs.  And Bashers, Miners, and Diggers all just dig in different directions.

The original version came with its own side effect warning label.

The developers were very keen on keeping the learning curve manageable.  The first few levels are designed to familiarize yourself with the games controls and jobs.  As the game goes on the challenges get more and more severe.  Each level has its own specific goals, many of the levels will only require the saving of a percentage of the lovable little scamps.  Unfortunately these levels require you to use either blockers or bombers in your strategy to martyr themselves for the greater good.  And if you see that you need to save 100% of the lemmings you know that you have failed immediately after one dies.

The nuke button made Lemmings the best game to screw up ever.

And what did the developers do in those tricky situations where we were completely stuck with no hope of success?  Well they gave us the nuke button of course (Thank god Disney hasn't featured lemmings in any more recent nature films).  Instead of allowing the level to just end with some downer jingle and sad times that you screwed up, you got to blow all of your little friends to smithereens, just like this guy who sings his rather joyous lemmings song the whole time (They start exploding at about 1:20 if you want to spare yourself from hearing the song the whole time)...

  
Thankfully the real soundtrack for Lemmings doesn't quite pack the same punch.  It's hard to believe that Lemmings has now been around for over two decades.  And obviously it still has demand, I believe it is currently on sale for digital download on the PSN and will be coming up on its 25th anniversary within the next few years so I expect to see the title make a return in the future.  In my opinion it is still one of the all time greats as far as strategy games goes.  So unless the Sega Dreamcast is your last working game system, find a copy of Lemmings and have some fun.

Also thankfully YouTubers like to upload themselves playing games without singing along.  Here is some Lemmings gameplay to enjoy.  The second one is particularly amazing check them out.