EyeToy Lemmings review

They say you should never go back.

Although when 'they' said that, they weren't reckoning with the joys of the 21st century, where a lack of ideas and imagination across whole entertainment mediums have necessitated revamps, remakes and constant returns to old franchises in an attempt to repackage for new audiences while squeezing every last drop of emotional longing from nostalgic onlookers. It's a strategy that critically fails more than succeeds, but financially there are enough reasons for companies to keep trying. Thankfully, Team 17 and Rusty Nutz have at least tried something new with this fresh unthawing of the popular, if rapidly aging puzzle game. EyeToy features, anyone?

Paws for thought

Yes, I'm a little surprised too. But it's a smart idea at the very least. A combination of Lemmings plus Sony's innovative yet underused peripheral is a strange idea; yet a promising one. However, I'm getting ahead of myself. And while that may be appropriate for the little rodents, let's take things slow for now. This is the first PlayStation 2 outing for the ever-popular Lemmings franchise and for better or for worse you can consider this an extremely close relation of the PSP version released earlier this year. It seems the handheld-to-console ports are becoming more frequent… although it's probably best to save that juicy topic for another time.

So, Lemmings PS2 via the way of PSP. If you're not familiar with the 15 year old title's premise, a very brief refresher. Your task is to save as many lemmings as possible from their doom by endowing them with a number of different abilities to guide them to an exit point. By assigning them talents such as blocking or building, you can eventually usher them home to safety away from grinders, sheer drops, bottomless water and other death dealing hazards.

Over 150 levels, a level editor and EyeToy compatibility. Sounds fairly enticing? Even for a port? Sure. Let's see how it plays out, shall we?

Let's go

Lemmings is broken up into three separate sections; Original, Special and EyeToy. Original is pretty much the old game with the levels we all know, love and fear, given a 2006 polish and shine. Visually it looks nice enough, touched up with enough detail and modestly animated 3D backgrounds to make the game attractive without losing its fundamental simplicity. There are a couple things added to make life easier on console, though. One is the zoom feature that allows you to get closer to the action and have a better idea of what's going on screen. Very welcome.

The second addition is that Team 17 has thoughtfully mapped the controls to the PS2 pad with maximum benefits, which aids the game's always-tricky transition from computer to console in huge ways. Analogue cursor movement is fast and responsive, shoulder buttons allow for speedy level scrolling, there's a fast forward button to let you skip through the more laborious tasks, and a lovely touch is present through use of rumble on the joypad, which lets you know when your chosen lemming's talent is about to expire, adding to the usual visual and audio cues.

The Special levels are the console specific ones, which manage to be just as well designed as the originals. In short, it's wonderfully playable and works exceptionally well, even as a PSP conversion. Admittedly the music can grate with its intentionally cheesy and annoyingly repetitive remixes of well known tunes, but that doesn’t detract too much from an otherwise great title. That said, there's no getting away from the fact it's a very old game. So really it's the EyeToy functionality that can either pull it towards being worth the effort or push it off a cliff of missed opportunity. Care to guess which?

Uh oh-no

To put it bluntly, the 20 levels of EyeToy Lemmings doesn’t quite work. It comes close in rare moments, but nothing truly beyond an inquisitive peek of playability. The idea is you manipulate your body to help the lemmings from the start of the level to the exit, using yourself as a bridge, removing destructible scenery, launching them from catapults you manually wind up, and so on.

In principle it's a fine idea. You move and shuffle yourself for the camera, helping the little green mopped rodents from place to place, even giving them a (usually) well deserved slap to kill any that get in your way. Which they will. Frustratingly often. Part of the problem is, as a game that relies on precision it requires utterly perfect conditions to work properly. Flawless lighting, plain and undistinguishable backgrounds, etc. Basically, a totally plain room. Because if you don’t have those conditions, you'll suddenly find your lemmings painfully irritating. They'll climb on that sofa you're sitting on behind you. They'll fall off the coffee table in front of you. Worse, they'll accidentally explode without warning if you move in the wrong direction because the EyeToy deemed you shunted your left shoulder too quickly into the chair next to you. Urgh.

It's horribly and frustratingly sporadic. Lemmings pop inexplicably, bounce, get fired all over the screen and generally do very little of what you want them to do, often despite your best body contortions. And this lack of accuracy kills the playability. There are some levels which fare better than others simply because you only need to interact with select parts of the screen: it doesn’t rely on the EyeToy as much for you to get the lemmings around, and as such that's when the game is actually fun. But those moments are a mere leaky raft among a sea of irritation. It's just far too unreliable a control method to be considered consistently enjoyable.

At the edge of a cliff/decision

Which brings us back to the original game and a rather predictable culmination. It was brave to include the EyeToy functionality, but as with any peripheral-driven mode, it has to be near flawless to be truly recommended - and this is far from it. Should you be familiar with Lemmings, then you really have to ask yourself if the new levels (and a decent PSP compatible level editor) are worth the cost. It may be budget price but that really should be compulsory for a game of this age.

Anyone new to the fiendish world of Lemmings should definitely give it a go nonetheless, as if you take away the failed (albeit admirable) attempt at innovation it's easily one of the better versions of the franchise and remains as addictive and playable as it ever has. Although there's sadly no escaping the great pity that in going back so far, the development team has just missed that extra mile in creating a game that would have otherwise been essential. Maybe the forthcoming PS3 version can change things.