2018 has seen a lot of classic franchises and games make a glorious return. Here comes another that nobody was expecting to see, just sneaking in there in time to see 2018 out: Lemmings.
It’s certainly been a good year to be a nostalgic gamer. Particularly one who grew up with the original PlayStation. In the wake of the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy’s success in 2017, this year saw other beloved PlayStation mascots of yore make a return.
The Spyro Reignited Trilogy was a huge hit last month, for one. Around Halloween, we also saw that cult hero (and mouldering skeletal knight) Sir Daniel Fortesque is heading back into action next year, with a remake of the original MediEvil.
This situation tends to leave gamers feeling a little conflicted. While it’s great to see a favourite title remastered and done justice (the Crash and Spyro trilogies both achieved this with aplomb), this sort of thing’s happening just a little too often. Take Nintendo’s Switch ports of Wii U games, for instance. There’s a whiff of cashgrabbery about the whole thing.
If you’re not about the whole remaster/HD remake/port thing, how does an all-new reboot of a classic franchise grab you? If you’re a gamer of a certain age who remembers the Lemmings games, this one’s sure to pique your interest: a new title in the series is available for mobile now.
In a manner of speaking, this is another PlayStation property making a return. After all, as Eurogamer reports, the Lemmings franchise has been under the Sony banner since they took charge of the original publisher of the franchise, Psygnosis. If you were wondering why there was an official Totaku figure from Lemmings, that’ll be why.
Back to the game at hand, though. This new Lemmings experience is available on Google Play and the App Store at this very darn second. It’s a free download, which means those dreaded microtransactions, but you’ve got nothing to lose by giving it a quick spin. Eurogamer summarise the experience thusly:
“It’s sensibly simplified for smaller screens and splashed with colour, and it plays pleasingly well. It’s locked in portrait mode so it’s geared around top-to-bottom puzzles, and in between levels you bring planets to life, for some reason.”
Quite where those planets come into it, it’s hard to say, but why question it? Fans of quirky puzzlers and those with fond memories of the series owe it to themselves to give it a shot. Let’s just hope those microtransactions don’t prove too intrusive.
