Lemmings Now On PSP
Sony has resurrected the little green-headed weirdos with a death wish for
Lemmings,
a video game now available for the PSP. The latest iteration of the
well-known strategy puzzler features fast scenarios in which players
must successfully guide a horde of smiley, dimwitted lemmings safely
from spawn portals to exit. In the last 15 years,
Lemmings has been ported for almost every handheld and console system imaginable, going back as far as the Lynx and Commodore 64.
Matt O'Driscoll, a producer at Sony, told SCI FI Wire that
Lemmings
was the ideal choice for a port to the PSP because of its easy and fun
gameplay. "The suitability of its
pick-up-and-play-for-five-minutes-or-an-hour [format] fits the play
patterns of mobile gamers perfectly," O'Driscoll said. "I personally
think the reasons for it coming to the platform is that good gameplay
never dies.
Lemmings deserved to be resurrected and punted out
to as wide an audience as possible. Certainly, the reaction we've had
to it has been brilliant."
The premise of the game is simple: Players must ensure that
the hapless Lemmings don't meet an untimely death by a variety a means.
If the player isn't fast and creative, the Lemmings will walk off
ledges, fall into fire pits or molten lava or be jabbed with mechanical
spikes. Players guide the Lemmings by selecting command prompts—such as
bashing, digging, building, climbing, mining and bombing—to move safely
from entrance to exit. Because the formula is largely intact from
previous versions of the game, little has been altered in the actual
gameplay, save the addition of 36 new levels and all-new updated
graphics.
"It's worlds apart visually from older ports, like the GBA
version," O'Driscoll said. "The PSP version uses the PSP graphical
capabilities well, and we've got a smooth and stunning-looking game
that uses very high-resolution landscape graphics. In addition, there
are all the original levels (all 120 of them!), plus 36 newly designed
levels, a level editor, and the ability to share your levels and
download others over the Internet."
Lemmings is on sale now and carries a suggested retail price of $39.99. —
Casey Lynch
Source: SciFi Wire