LEMMINGS REVOLUTION

One More Puzzle To Challenge Their Tiny Little Brains...

After years of risking life and limb, the Lemmings' migration to find their utopia was over. The Lemmings had found their promised land and made themselves home. Some took shelter in the forests, and some by the ocean, while others settled in the desert.

Little did the Lemmings know that their adventures had become the stuff of legend, and had attracted particular interest among the weasels. One dark night, every Lemming was captured and packed away into boxes while the weasels set to work! The only means of escape is their hot air balloons. Unfortunately these have been strategically positioned to lure the Lemmings into danger.

Lead the Lemmings to safety in this addicting puzzle / strategy game !

• The witless little Lemmings have returned - this time in a simple, elegant 3D world filled with hazards like lava and perilous heights. One hundred puzzles to play over and over again - like the Treehouse, the Stone Tower and more!
• Rotate the puzzle structure while directing Lemmings around its entire circumference, guiding the little morons to the safety of a waiting hot air balloon.
• Three types of Lemmings to play - standard, lava and water Lemmings have unique skills.
• Use the 16 skills you can teach the Lemmings to help them along - such as the classic Basher and Climber to the new Trampoline and AntiGravity and more!
• Adjustable difficulty settings cutsomize the game for any ability level - from Easy to Very Hard and anywhere in between.
• Wonderful, pleasing scenery and music to enjoy while preventing the demise of these dopey guys.

~ from the back of the box

In the latter half of the 90s, the Lemmings - still in their prime - experimented quite a bit with each release. Whether it be the early stab at converting the gameplay into 3D, arming the critters with paintball guns or directly controlling one of them in a side-scrolling platformer, it seems the only game they didn't put out was one with the classic gameplay we all fell in love with. Then in 2000, the lemmings got a revolution with Lemming Revolution which was ironically not that revolutionary.

To be fair, the 'Revolution' of the title is a play on words. Not only does it describe their actions against some oppressive weasels, but it also refers to the playfield itself. Levels are no longer a singular landscape, but carved out of a cylindrical pillar. You can rotate or revolve the camera around by holding the right mouse button and as there's no edge to the stages, the gormless rodents can walk in circles ad infinitum providing there's no obstacles to them. 

White lemmings must have some Jesus in their blood being able to walk on water (left).

With their acid-walking skills, I don't want to know what kind of blood the green lemmings have (right).

Mechanically, the game reverts back to that of the original, offering up the same basic yet highly effective occupations. Our lemmings can climb, float, explode, block, build, bash, tunnel and dig just like it was before superheroes and ninjas creeped in. That's no to say that there aren't any new features. To accompany the standard blue robed lemmings, some stages throw out white or green clothed ones. Those dressed in white have learned the ability to swim, which not only means they can fall from any height into a pool of the blue stuff, but the can literally walk on water. Not acid, though. While functionally the same type of hazard as water, lemmings garbed in green are impervious to it.

Together, these are just an extra layer of complexity and ingenuity to the levels, which number over 100. The variety, however, is a little lacking. By residing in a cylinder, there isn't much to distinguish between areas beyond the colour palette and animated background art almost completely obscured by the stage itself. What's worse, there's no Christmas-themes stages completely ruining my long-running tradition of posting this up on Christmas day. Humbug!

Later puzzles throw a lot at you at once, such as switches, teleports and speed boosts (left).
One of the new hazards is a boxing weasel (or kangaroo?), which will knock lemmings of the screen (right).

What it lacks in variety, it make up for in playability. The design has not aged one bit and remains as entertaining as ever. Were a new game or remake made today, I would like to see some quality-of-life improvement such as a rewind feature, a hint system or the ability to customise the gameplay to make it more or less difficult depending on how much hair you have left on your head. By its very nature, Lemmings is a game about trial and error over lateral thinking which means you'll see the failure screen way more often that the success one. It's not always obvious to predict what hazards lay ahead and there's nothing worse than a well-thought-out plan leading to a total wipe out. Then again, there's nothing better than witnessing a line of marching rodents jump into a hot air balloon after spending fifteen minutes executing the perfect route.

There's no doubt about it; Lemmings is a classic. And while Lemmings Revolution doesn't exactly revolutionise the franchise, I would say that statement could also refer to this one. It's an absolute classic.

To download the PC game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses dgVoodoo to run on modern systems. Manual included. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 237 Mb.  Install Size: 366 Mb.  Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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Lemmings Revolution is © Psygnosis, Ltd
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me

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