^ But did they not have the appeal because they weren't ported? Or were they not ported because of lack of appeal? I have to say, personally, I found L2 to be only average, and L3 horrible, compared to the original. L3D was fairly good though, and Revolution was quite impressive - now notice that these two (at least in some aspects) go back to basics? IDK haha. Just my random incoherent thoughts on it.
I don't really know which way the causality flows in each case (as we all know, sometimes it's ego that gets game series ended or hampered, and not the market itself - it's part of why other overlapping markets are now hitting the core games business so incredibly hard, because huge numbers of people more-or-less said "Hell with this - I'll go elsewhere."), but I really only meant that, in this case, this is a game that would definitely net a larger audience if it was only allowed to have one.
I'm not sure how touch controls can be better than buttons and keyboard. I think with buttons and keyboard, you can do multi tasking more easier.
That wasn't my meaning - I meant that in the context of this game, certain things assigned to the Vita's physical controls would actually work just as well or better if placed on the touch-screen, because almost everything in-game is handled from there. It really feels like using the d-pad and a couple of buttons for certain functions wasn't the original plan, and that it was moved from mobile platforms to the Vita, instead (the "social media" sharing buttons on the post-level screens also strongly add to this impression - I don't believe I've ever seen this in a console game).
The fact that this has repeated levels means we might never see a new Lemmings game with 100+ that are not from previous games, except the ones made by fans because they have more free time to work on Lemmings than Sony does. They even said it will have both new and old levels here in the second paragraph: http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2013/08/gamescom_2013_wait_theres_a_new_lemmings_game_on_the_way
I worry about the same thing, though I'm honestly amazed that we even got this game. I'm fully not expecting another, ever, because no matter how good it is (and it is good!), nobody is going to play it due to its PS Vita exclusivity.
As for the statement about old levels being included, the claim therein had me a bit confused
way back in this thread. I'll quote my old post for clarity;
I'm really sorry for the double-post, but I stumbled across this interesting little nugget of information, from here;
According to an interview with executive producer James Harkins on The Average Gamer, the platform holder has collaborated with various fansites to select the best stages from earlier games.
I'm just left asking one thing: When, or did they just never come here?
I seriously feel like I've missed something, here! Unless, of course, they don't mean Lemmings fan-sites.
Of course, having now played it, it feels like only random levels used in the PSP version were chosen, most of which are from the Amiga original anyway. I haven't seen anything from any other Lemmings games, as the claim would imply, at all.
And of course, I don't really know of any other Lemmings fan-sites with an active community, so I'm still left wondering who they asked about the levels.
I'm pretty sure the new audience aren't going to noticed those levels are old, if the game was meant to target those people.
I just meant that the PS Vita is aimed at a "core" audience who might likely have played Lemmings previously. Some value-packs for the Vita in the UK actually include the PSP Lemmings as a download, even.
Of course, if you mean the same thing as I was trying (and likely failing) to say - that a phone/tablet audience, which is much larger and more likely to contain newcomers to the games wouldn't notice - I totally agree.
If they wanted to bring back those levels, it would have been more interesting to have those levels with the new features added to them, like the evil Lemmings. This will effect the old solution but it will make the level look new.
Fully agreed on this. I do wish that's what they'd done, as it would make the repeats rather less tiresome. Again, it's not that the repeats are bad levels, it's just that they're drowning out truly excellent new content.
Well I think for L3 at least, we can definitely say "not ported because of lack of appeal". Heck, the game itself was meant to have more tribes that would come out as future expansion packs (or so I've heard), but even that fell through, never mind ports.
The manual mentions the expansions (I've got a PDF of it here - I can dig up the relevant quote if you're interested).
The strange thing is, the manual also mentions credits for an unreleased port, which was apparently also mentioned in a seasonal catalogue for the platform in question - the 3DO; This would've been the only console version of the game (I wonder if its cancellation was tied to the decision to release the game incomplete? There surely wouldn't have been any way of adding the rest of the game, on that platform, as far as I know).
The irony here is, Chronicles was released at about the same time the Mega Drive and SNES versions of Lemmings 2 were, and seems to have been completely overshadowed by them. A shame, as I think it's a sadly under-appreciated game, whose issues seem to stem from someone deciding to rush and get it released unfinished (the final game even comes with an errata sheet explaining some quite major menu/save-system changes implemented after the manual went to print), and then release the rest later - an attitude that now hampers games more than ever, and probably one of the earliest examples of that problem.
