Level Review Topic

[geoo]

Genesis - Present 28 - Which one are you trying to get?


Lemmings: 30
Save: 30 (100%)
Time: 4 minutes
Release rate: 99
Skills: 1 climber, 10 floaters, 2 bombers, 1 blocker, 4 builders, 3 bashers, 1 miner, 3 digger.

Good: You're directly positioned above the exits, yet you can't just directly go down. I remember this level as pretty difficult, though when I look at it now, I see a wide variety of solutions. Guess that's a good point though. The fall height as well as the restraint on vertical terrain removal skills makes requires you to go for a non-obvious solution...
Bad: ...until you notice the floaters, which somewhat simplify matters without need for that. Guess being that late in the set, the difficulty would be more appropriate if the floaters were removed.

EDIT: typo removed.

[Proxima]

You've made a typo; that one's Present 28.

Genesis - Present 29 - Private room available


20 lemmings
Save 100%
5 minutes
Release rate 1

1 bomber, 1 builder, 2 bashers, 40 diggers

Good: Unique solution concept, well carried out in a very pretty-looking level. Title is a good clue to the solution.
Bad: With so many diggers and not much else, the trick is not hard to figure, and somewhat tedious to carry out. I don't feel it merits a position this late in the set.

[Gronkling]

Bump.

Genesis - Present 30 - Final impediment


Number of lemmings: 100
Save 100% (100/100)
Skills: 0/1/0/1/15/5/1/2
Time: 4:00
Release rate: 1

Good: A daunting looking final level. A nice way to block a lemming at the lower right corner.
Bad: Theres a huge backroute, overlapping steel blocks look messy, way to easy for the final level and there's to much building.

3.5/10 not that good really.

[Clam]

Genesis - Sunsoft 1 - Rules to fall


Lemmings: 20
Save: 10 (50%)
RR: 30
Time: 1 minute
Skills: 20 floaters, 1 digger

Good: Neat symmetric design, good decoration.
Bad: Nothing to the solution at all. (Genesis doesn't have direct drop does it? If so then )

[Gronkling]

Genesis - Sunsoft 2 - Inside the bone

Number of lemmings: 50
Save 100% (50/50)
Skills: 0/0/0/0/13/2/0/0
Time: 5:00
Release rate: 1

Good: Relaxing to play and mostly looks nice. Not just a boring hero lemming level.
Bad: A bit easy for sunsoft really. The two overlapping signs in the center look a bit messy too.

[Luis]

After reading the bad about the levels, it made me think what if they made a difficulty in the option that makes all levels have the fewest number of skills as possible? I know you guys are already doing that, but not everyone plays the game for that. If this option was in the real game, it would have encourage people to try that challenge out. I also noticed after reading the bad is that some levels have too many useless skills that you can beat without using it. That's an unanswered mystery, on why they gave you too many skills. I don't know if the developers had the time to look deep into the level and discover everything about it. This goes in the same category as gamers finding glitches that the developers didn't know about.

[ccexplore]

Keep in mind that the point of this review game/topic is that you have to say something good and something bad about the level you're reviewing.  So the bad can sometimes be more nitpicky and harsher than the overall level impression really is.

The difficulty mode idea is definitely a good idea and can help with replayability, although to some extent they already did that in the original game when they repeated levels from easier ratings in harder ratings.  A further extension of this (though obviously not ready for the technologies of that era) would be the rankings and achievements system you see nowadays in many games.

"too many useless skills" just tends to be the laziest "bad" one can give to a level. In practice unless it totally made the level trivial for its rating (which happens sometimes), extra skills aren't all that bad.  Sometimes it can even spice things up by giving you "red herrings" distracting you from divining the true solution to the level.

[finlay]

Bad: Nothing to the solution at all. (Genesis doesn't have direct drop does it? If so then )

it totally does and all... 

[DoubleU]

Sensei's Library and TV Tropes are wikis that allow for non-encyclopedic content in their articles; is Lemmings Wiki the same?  I ask because I disagree with many of these reviews, especially the cons, and want to add in my own two cents and then some, and I was thinking that the Lemmings Wiki, hosted as it is by Wikia, might be the place to do that.

[ccexplore]

The wiki isn't really being worked on much.  We don't have any strong visions right now for what goes into the wiki, but personally I'm not really in favor of non-encyclopedic content, for the same reason that Wikipedia don't hosts reviews of TV episodes or movies by random users.  But feel free to start your own wiki or website if you feel strongly about it.

Keep in mind that these sort of review topic is more of a game, and of course everyone is going to have their own opinions about levels and such.  No one is pretending that the reviews are authoritative or even representative in any manner.

[Luis]

Is there another version of this level?
 

In the Planet Lemmings site, that level is placed as Mayhem 19, but when I Google that level, it gives me that level from the original game.


I see you guys skipped Mayhem 19, since it's a level from the first Lemmings, so that means it is a mistake that site. There's another mistake in the Planet Lemmings site where they have 1 digger in "Fix the road quick!".

[finlay]

Planet Lemmings' list doesn't take into account the fact that some of the original Tricky levels were kept but renumbered. So Mayhem 19 is not changed, but Tricky 11 is; the level "Lemmings in the attic" was just moved to earlier in the set. Mayhem 19's thumbnail still points to Tricky 11, though, which is where the problem arises. Take a look at my spreadsheet – I have actually attempted to go through the Genesis with a fine-tooth comb to get all the stats right, and the repeated levels are recorded in the comments column on the right.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15543016/lem/Lemmings%20Levels.xls

[ccexplore]

Sensei's Library and TV Tropes are wikis that allow for non-encyclopedic content in their articles; is Lemmings Wiki the same?  I ask because I disagree with many of these reviews, especially the cons, and want to add in my own two cents and then some, and I was thinking that the Lemmings Wiki, hosted as it is by Wikia, might be the place to do that.

Having been doing some recent wiki editing, it occurred to me that one can perhaps use the Talk (aka Discussion) pages associated with the main wiki page for a level to post nonfactual things like personal reviews for the levels, and you can even go into spirited discussions and arguments in there if you like (within constraints of civility etc.).  But I'm really against having that sort of stuff on the main page itself.

[Proxima]

Hey, now that Lix has revived the level of forum activity somewhat, shall we see if we can continue this review game, at least to the end of the Genesis levels? (Earlier in the thread, there were plans to do SMS next, but I don't know how many of the current forum-users have played that version....)

Genesis - Sunsoft 3 - Anxiety


60 lemmings
Save 100%
RR 30
5 minutes

5 builders, 4 miners

Good: Nice puzzle, to separate one worker lemming with very limited skills; there are in fact a choice of solutions. Excellent title, and beautiful use of the graphics set, for instance the tapered pillars at the top, and the stairs on the big block.
Bad: The hangman trap at the bottom is pointless? That's about the only bad thing I can find on this level.

[mobius]

I don't meant to go off topic but I couldn't see starting a new topic just for a small question. I never heard of the Sega Genesis version of Lemmings until this site. How in the heck do you move a cursor around the screen with the Genesis game controller (or any other controller for that matter?) I'd image the controls must be stiff and slow for Lemmings.

Were these levels released solely on the Sega Genesis? I'd like to get these levels; is there a remade pack for Lemmix or Lemini somewhere?