Lemmings
Platform: PSP
Publisher: SCEA
Review Type: Touchy
Version: Preview Code
There's been a lot of justifiable pissing and moaning lately about the state of the PSP library. Most gamers find it tough to pinpoint a "killer-ap" for the handheld. And it's true; there are no real standouts. But, I think Sony's strategy has always been one of delivering quantity and letting gamers find the quality where they see it.
Lemmings is certainly no reason to buy a PSP, but this solid reworking of the 15-year-old classic works as another positive notch on the console's belt. This preview build contained a handful of levels of varying difficulty. The look of the game is fairly simple. The Lemmings themselves are still tiny, low-pixel creatures -- just as they ought to be. The envirnonments they traipse around in are rendered with a little more pizazz. Rock formations contain fossilized bones, tracing out the remains of dinosaurs in an attractive sprite simulation of 3D. When you speed up the game, the screen is treated with an effect mimicking the imperfect fast-forwarding of video tape. We're not talking next gen here. Just enough eye candy to fill the PSP's screen.
Eye-popping graphics or no, games like Lemmings are all about the puzzles. A slip-shod assortment of levels would render a game like this merely adequate. In my mind, it's all about execution -- properly ordering and presenting of levels so that the user slowly learns new tricks and approaches as the difficulty slowly ramps up. This demo's levels felt like a random assortment and not the game's first levels, so it's impossible to guage just how well developer Team 17 pulled this off.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this forthcoming game is the promise of a level editor. There's been a lot of buzz in the gaming community around Mega Man: Powered Up's abilty to create, upload and download user-made levels. I don't doubt for a minute that a similar community of amateur game designers will sprout up around Lemmings as well. Hopefully, they'll cook up a way to prevent jokesters from posting impossible-to-solve levels. Because I'm sure some dillweed is gonna try it.
Lemmings is due on May 23rd
Publisher: SCEA
Review Type: Touchy
Version: Preview Code
There's been a lot of justifiable pissing and moaning lately about the state of the PSP library. Most gamers find it tough to pinpoint a "killer-ap" for the handheld. And it's true; there are no real standouts. But, I think Sony's strategy has always been one of delivering quantity and letting gamers find the quality where they see it.
Lemmings is certainly no reason to buy a PSP, but this solid reworking of the 15-year-old classic works as another positive notch on the console's belt. This preview build contained a handful of levels of varying difficulty. The look of the game is fairly simple. The Lemmings themselves are still tiny, low-pixel creatures -- just as they ought to be. The envirnonments they traipse around in are rendered with a little more pizazz. Rock formations contain fossilized bones, tracing out the remains of dinosaurs in an attractive sprite simulation of 3D. When you speed up the game, the screen is treated with an effect mimicking the imperfect fast-forwarding of video tape. We're not talking next gen here. Just enough eye candy to fill the PSP's screen.
Eye-popping graphics or no, games like Lemmings are all about the puzzles. A slip-shod assortment of levels would render a game like this merely adequate. In my mind, it's all about execution -- properly ordering and presenting of levels so that the user slowly learns new tricks and approaches as the difficulty slowly ramps up. This demo's levels felt like a random assortment and not the game's first levels, so it's impossible to guage just how well developer Team 17 pulled this off.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this forthcoming game is the promise of a level editor. There's been a lot of buzz in the gaming community around Mega Man: Powered Up's abilty to create, upload and download user-made levels. I don't doubt for a minute that a similar community of amateur game designers will sprout up around Lemmings as well. Hopefully, they'll cook up a way to prevent jokesters from posting impossible-to-solve levels. Because I'm sure some dillweed is gonna try it.
Lemmings is due on May 23rd
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home