All rightie, finally added some more LP links to the OP, especially as some were long overdue. 5 more LPs added: On the Lemmings front, the LP of namida's LPOII and WillLem's Lemminas II, while on the non-Lemmings front: Operation Neptune (PC), Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow (PC CD), and Bio Menace Episode 1: Dr Mangle's Lab (Dos).
For LPO2, this was the very first level pack of 2023 I LPed, and that was near the end of last month. As indicated by the pack's name, this is the sequel to namida's Lemmings Plus Omega pack, as well as currently the third-to-last pack in the Lemmings Plus series (after this there are LPVI, LPA, and LP3D). I took a 3 month hiatus from the game to focus on other stuff, and I can say it was a much needed break. Before this, I came back to cover LDC #27 content, and it was a pretty rude awakening, as I totally didn't expect the levels to be difficult. It would seem that my solving skills have rusted quite a bit during that time. Then when I followed that up with my LP of LPO2, I apparently was beyond sharp (pun intended) until I got to the final Sharp rank, the hardest levels the pack has to offer. This culminates in Sharp 18, possibly namida's hardest level I have played and solved. However, I was eventually able to make it all the way to the very end and solve all of the pack, giving me a great sense of accomplishment, as I have beaten one of namida's hardest packs. In the level pack topic, he classes the difficulty as "extreme," but honestly it didn't really feel over the top hard in any way other than the Sharp levels. To be fair, it likely is due to all the experience I have gained from solving so many level packs before I took on LPO2. I have to suspect if this was one of the earliest NL packs I've played, I likely would had struggled even more than I did during my LP. At the same time, the extreme difficulty is still justified, as this is apparently a pack that even Nepster and Akseli, who I both consider better solvers than me, couldn't solve completely.
Though I was able to solve all of the pack, this is a reminder that this does not in any way prove one's intelligence, as namida has stated elsewhere on this site which I completely agree with. Really all it means is that I simply get stuck on different levels than they do.
In any case, I absolutely enjoyed LPO2 from start to finish and is currently very high up on my favorite level packs of all time!
I do understand how some have complained about LPV and LPO2 being too hard and hence namida intentionally dialed back on the difficulty for LPVI, but I absolutely love these challenging level packs and am willing to face the challenges.
Being able to solve these really hard levels is what allows one to get better at solving! The sense of accomplishment of doing so can also feel great!
The next Lemmings level pack I took on shortly after finishing LPO2 was WillLem's Lemminas II. Again as indicated by the pack's name, this is the sequel to WillLem's flagship pack Lemminas. This pack is on the much easier side, but I still enjoyed it nevertheless. As I've stated plenty of times, yes, I prefer hard Lemmings levels with specific solutions, but the truth is I enjoy Lemmings levels of all difficulties. So, don't worry about if I think the pack is easy. After all, packs of all difficulties can still be critically acclaimed and well-received. They just need to be done right. In addition, the emphasis was more on the visuals and "accessibility" and therefore WillLem aimed for a lower difficulty with this sequel pack than the higher difficulty of the prequel pack. This can really be seen in the new tilesets featured in the pack that haven't been seen before. They are mostly just recolorings of previously released tilesets while keeping with the Lemminas theme. In regards to the lower difficulty, I think WillLem has been successful in achieving just that with Lemminas II. This is just considering the non-talismans, as the talisman challenge solutions are supposed to offer an even greater challenge/difficulty. Even then, don't be fooled by this, as some levels are still challenging enough even without the talismans!
I've also noted that WillLem's remakes of the official levels tend to be some of his best and hardest levels. There's at least one remake of an official level per rank in this pack. I generally prefer to play new levels instead of remakes from the official Lemmings games, but it's fine with there aren't too many of the latter. I think WillLem stroke the right balance here between new levels and remakes.
For the record, currently there are two levels that I haven't been able to solve yet, Black Hole 1 from Nepsterlems (been stuck here for almost 3 years) and the final level of RotL (almost 4 months). So far, they have yet to eclipse the level I've been stuck on the longest, for which the record goes to Gronkling's level Bonus 25 - "Mystery Machine" on the Lemmini version of RotL. That level had me stuck for a little over 3 years all because of a glitch I never even knew about or seen before. To be fair, it is a huge leap to come up with on one's own, and I actually needed some clarification of the glitch needed for the level in the Lemmini glitch topic as it was a bit poorly worded. Yes, I got stuck for a long time there, but eventually I was able to figure it out.
Operation Neptune LPThen on the non-Lemmings front, another game I LPed was Operation Neptune. This is a game that was made by The Learning Company. It involves navigating the submarine Operation Neptune around collecting capsules and data canisters while avoiding sea creature hazards by shooting ink pellets at them to render them harmless for several seconds or one could simply maneuver carefully around them and avoid getting hit. The focus is on math skills, and I certainly remember when I first played the game either in upper elementary or in middle school that the highest level problems were beyond my comprehension, let alone that I wasn't good at problem solving back then. Interestingly enough, I went on to major in math and studied it for both my bachelor's and master's degrees. As a result, I obviously am more than capable of handling the highest level of math problems in the game now.
There are two different games here, Voyager and Expert. The former is like the easy mode, while the latter is a hard mode. While the objective is the same and you go through the same 5 zones in each game, the sectors are different in the layout in each one. The sea creature hazards in the latter also tend to be faster and smarter, making it harder to avoid them without shooting ink pellets at them. In addition, the storyline is different, as indicated by the data log entries from the data canisters you unlock.
All in all, the game still holds up quite well, though you likely will need to run a virtual machine to get the game running. That's exactly how I recorded the game with OBS.
Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow LP (PC CD)This is another game I grew up with when I was little. It was pretty much a Christmas present from the wife of a friend of my dad's. There was another game I also was gifted at the time, Toy Story for the PC. I didn't show much interest in the former at first, but once I started watching my brother play it, I took an interest. From what I understand, there's also a Genesis version, which seems to be more well-known than the PC version. The latter is apparently very hard to grab these days. I don't remember how I got it, but I think it was from a download on Youtube. In any case, I grew up with the PC version.
It features Maui Mallard, aka, Donald Duck, going through various levels/stages, killing bad guys along the way. In some levels, he can morph into his ninja alter ego form, Cold Shadow. Most stages end with a difficult boss fight battle. Once you beat the boss, you generally go to the next level/stage. Controls are pretty simple, involving jumping and shooting. There were definitely some levels that were hard for me at the time, but the one level that still remains difficult to play well and complete would be the penultimate stage. It's also quite nightmare fuel inducing.
One interesting thing I didn't realize is that apparently the one I have is different from the one I grew up with in one regard: When the plot exposition is being displayed, the name given is Donald instead of Maui. I think this isn't the North American version of the game despite being in English. I never noticed this until I had finished the LP. It's still the same game, but the connection between Donald Duck and Maui Mallard is lost this way. I think that would explain why the title splash screen is different since Maui is replaced with Donald.
This game I recorded on the Windows 10 host machine. Luckily this runs fine without needing to fire up a VM, though you still need to do some modifications in order for it to run properly. The download came with instructions, so I followed it and had no problem with it not running. Definitely can recommend, especially if you like Donald Duck, though as I've mentioned the PC version is quite difficult to get these days.
This is the first time I finished the game on Hard difficulty, which as I understand affects how much health and lives you start with but is otherwise the same in every regard. All enemies are the same and I think they still take the same number of hits to be killed, meaning the difficulty doesn't increase with there being more or them being more powerful. However, some hazards take a bigger chunk of your health if you get hit on higher difficulties than on lower difficulties.
Bio Menace Episode 1: Dr. Mangle's Lab LP (Dos)The final game I LPed before I returned to covering Lemmings content is a Dos game called Bio Menace. I've only LPed the first episode for now, but I think I will return to do the next two episodes later on down the line. This was a game that I grew up playing but I didn't complete as a kid. I was able to complete a few levels but I either stopped on the third one or a few levels after it. I've completed the game for the first time many years later, I believe sometime in the 2010s, after I had already graduated from college/university. It features the character Snake Logan who investigates a terrorist attack in the city and completes his mission by foot after his plane crash landed. Like Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow, you go through various levels/stages, firing and killing enemies and collecting items along the way to help you turn off the electrical beam that guards each exit at the end. There are also hostages in some stages which you must rescue before you can proceed to the next. There are some boss battles along the way, but it all ends in a boss battle in the final stage which will further reveal some disturbing plot elements after you defeat him.
It's not an easy game by any means, and the brutal difficulty especially shows if you play on hard, which I did for the very first time when I did my LP. Just like the previous game I LPed from above, the difficulty affects how much bars of health and lives you begin with. There is a further handicap which will really make things tough in that if you collect a medical kit, though it's supposed to restore you to the maximum amount of health allowed in the difficulty you selected, in hard mode it caps you to two, even though you start with four. So, this pretty much means don't collect them unless you already have two health bars or less. Indeed, there were plenty of times which I needed to load up a save during the LP. As a result, this got frustrating when I kept dying so much. I honestly didn't remember the game being this hard, though that's likely because I played on lower difficulties and hence never ran into this problem, especially as there's no handicap with the medical kits.
As this is a Dos game, I recorded this through Dosbox, similar to how I did my LP of Lemmings 3D. Even with the limitations of the hardware at the time, the game still holds up quite well IMO, especially the graphics and the music. I didn't realize that the volume for my Dosbox was still turned down from the time I did L3D, so I was wondering whether the music was naturally softer. I later found out it was from the Dosbox volume still down from last time I did L3D, so I fixed that for future LP videos of the game. Only in the first video where it'll likely be hard to hear the music.
As I understand, there is now a Steam version of the game, so if you fancy that you can buy and obtain that one instead. Of course, I could had played that instead of the Dos version, but I think it was still fine to show the game as it was back then with the limited hardware, similar to how I did the Microsoft version of Chip's Challenge instead of the Steam re-release. Still a game I recommend, especially if you're into the scrolling platformer type game. It still has a decent plot as well.
All rightie, I'll likely cover some more Lemmings content for a few more weeks before taking another break and LPing other non-Lemmings stuff that I would like to get to and show off. I think I will put up a poll for that in a day or so, as I think I will have you, this LF community, help me decide the next two packs to LP. So, be on the lookout for that, and I'll make sure to post to announce when I put it up
Poll