Mother Nature has come up with some pretty strange ways of keeping population levels stable, but none are so strange as that of the Lemming, a small vole-like rodent which inhabits sub-arctic regions of Scandinavia and North America.
When the population level of Lemmings become too great, these cute little critters make the ultimate sacrifice for their race - they throw themselves off the nearest cliff!

Take a tip or two from nature, Psygnosis have adapted the obscure life story of the Lemming and turned it into a multi-screen epic which sees you trying to halt the mass genocide of a race of dungaree clad, green-haired creatures. Your brief is simple - using your trusty mouse, you must guide the Lemmings to safety with a minimal number of fatalities en route.

Each level starts with a trapdoor creaking open and a cry of 'Let's Go!' The Lemmings then pour forth to their eventual doom. Our heroes file along the ground until they encounter an obstacle (in which case they turn around and walk back in the opposite direction) or die horribly.

Every Lemming starts its life as a walker but - with your divine intervention - they can be assigned various skills which will allow them to collectively construct a safe passage to the exit of each level.
By selecting one of the skills from a strip of icons which run along the base of the screen and then clicking on a Lemming, you can endow it with the skills of a climber, a floater, a digger, a blocker and even a suicidal bomber.

Each level requires you to save a minimum number of Lemmings before you can proceed to the next, if you fall you'll have to try again.
If, on the other hand, you find that things aren't going too well - large number of Lemmings are trapped, for example - then you can end it all by 'nuking' every Lemming that is left alive.
The poor little fellows stop what they are doing, hold their heads in pain and then with a last desperate cry of 'Oh no!', they explode in a shower of pixels.

The majority of the time you'll be trying to save the Lemmings on your own, but Psygnosis have built in a 2 player option, which adds an exciting new twist to the game.
This time, the object is to save more Lemmings than your opponent, by guiding them away from your opponent's exit point. This usually involves a large number of Lemming deaths, but it can be great fun.

Lemmings is absolutely brilliant. Psygnosis have managed to produce a game that is not only totally original, but also features the kind of addictive gameplay that will keep you coming back for more time and time again.
If you only ever intend buying one game for your Amiga, then it's got to be Lemmings. Put simply, Lemmings is an absolute Amiga classic.

Oh no! The lemmings are dropping into deadly danger! Only you can give the necessary instructions to save their little lives and guide them to safety of a cliff-free zone. Are you up to giving lemming aid?
Each level begins with a huge trap-door creaking open, then down tumble a herd of dungaree-clad, green-haired lemmings. Being folk of little brain, and left to their own devices the lemm's do what they do best: die! Why? Because those cruel people at Psygnosis have crammed each level with dangers that are absolutely guaranteed to kill the terminally stupid, i.e. lemmings.

Doing the do
The lemm's can only be saved if you take control By giving lemm's certain tasks to do it's, just about, feasible to shepherd the bumbling bunch to safety. A menu bar below the game's screen offers a number of icon options. Through it, any lemming can be changed from a standard 'runner' into a 'do'er',by selecting a task icon, then clicking on a specific individual. Lemm's can dig, build, bash, climb and tunnel. The can even use parasol parachutes when presented with the kind of cliff-drop that has made them famous.

The road to sanctuary, though, is never smooth; pot-holed by one simple fact: there are never enough of the right commands! On a level full of ravines it's a safe bet that there's one too few bridge-building commands to straddle the gap. So cunning plans are the order of the day to ensure enough - a percentage of lemmings must be saved on each level - lemm's reach safety.

Run away
In their way are chasms that must be spanned, hills that have to be tunnelled through and fatal falls that must be guarded by suicide-blockers. Once they are down they start running and will continue to charge in the same direction until they hit a solid object - either a wall or a blocker - or if they run out of floor. Once past such a peak, the little lemm's can only survive a short fall. If the distance is too great for them they sickeningly splat in a shower of lemming drops.

Embroiled in a frantic race against time, you have to juggle blockers, bashers and floaters as well as the main her. Taxing and tense it makes for incredible gaming. Succeed and your grin will shame a Cheshire cat, fail and you have to try again.
The frantic high-speed thinking is underpinned with the tension of timing. The best example of this is waiting for bridge-builders to span a gulf. Each command only lasts for ten small bricks, after these are laid the lemm' reverts back to normal and runs onwards. Fine if they've bridged the gap, fatal if they haven't. To stop such suicidal tendencies and lengthen the bridge, you have to wait until the tenth brick is laid. Then, as the lemm' turns and looks bemused, you have to slap another bridge-builder command on them.

Cliff hanger
Why, however, should anyone want to spend time and mental anguish saving the lemm's? The answer partially lies in their excellent animation. Although only a few pixels high, the little folk have real character. They hold their heads in despair if instructed to self destruct and tap their toes as they get bored of blocking.

The lack of one main protagonist and, instead, focusing upon a collective group who are controlled via icons, puts this firmly in the 'god game' genre. Most important, though, is the blending of this 'god game' approach into the obvious puzzle formula. The resultant mix transcends the normal limits of shapes, pipes and balls that have held back the likes of Klax and E-Motion. The lemmings supply the intrigue, while the puzzling levels gives the grey matter a hard time.

Lemmings is a hoot to play and quickly becomes a dangerous obsession. Four different styles are available plus a two-player mode. All call for a clear head and a cool hand if you are to finish a level and gain the next password. There are 160 levels, each of which has more than one solution.
You must decide the best way to solve a level, given the commands available, and any favoured personal approach. There, as the old saying goes, more than one way to explode a lemming.

Lemmings could be the first surprise smash of 1991. With the minimum of hype, Psygnosis have released this incredibly original but visually so-so product - and now it's on the tips of everyone's tongues.

CU Amiga coverdisk owners were the first to be treated to its simple aim - save a hundred or so green-haired lemmings from their urge to suicide. The lemmings are - to put none too fine a point on it - a bit thick. They follow each other off ledges, through fire and intro traps. Unsupervised lemmings will end up stone cold dead. This is where you come in, helping the lemmings in their hour of need by guiding them to safety.

Each level contains two set features: the trap door where the lemmings fall into the screen, and the exit, where they get out. Between them lie every sort of pitfall imaginable - decapitators, lasers, fire pits, water pools (lemmings can't swim) and long drops to name but a few.

What makes the game doubly hard is the lack of a turnaround option. A lemming will only backtrack if he hits a non harmful object. Most the time a blocker needs to be used to prevent lemmings from plopping off ledges or into traps. The problem with blockers is that they can only be moved by tunnelling underneath them, or blowing them up which is usually the only feasible option.

At first glance an average level looks pretty simple; it's not until the first few lemminsg drop onto the screen that the problems become apparent. Usually you're only given the types of lemmings necessary to complete a level, plus a few extra to play with. The fact that every level has a time limit doesn't help things. Even if you know how to complete a level it can still take several attempts before you complete it within the allotted time.

There are forty 2-player levels falling into three categories: race, which operates on the simple principle of 'first to get all lemmings past the post' wins; head-to-head, which is similar to the race, except there's more room to knobble another player, and there's the occasional co-operative level, where both players have to help each other. The game's remaining 120 stages(!) are split into three difficulty levels, which range from dead simple to extremely tough.

Although very small and sparsely detailed, the graphics work very well with the gameplay. The animation on the lemmings is excellent, combining humour with clarity. A variety of weird tunes play throughout the game, the most bizarre being a mixture of 'here comes the bride' and 'how much is that doggie in the window'.

Lemmings is the perfect family game. The difficulty levels mean that it's playable by all ages, and once you've grasped the gameplay you can play it straight away. The only problem I came across was trying to select a particular lemming in a crowd of around a hundred - but chaos is half the fun with Lemmings. A truly excellent game.

Lemmings are those notorious vole-like rodents whose holiday planning leaves so much to be desired, cheerily toppling over the edge of cliffs on their lunatic migratory jaunts. It's not as if they're suicidal, they're just too dopey to notice imminent death staring them in the face. Now you've been given control of a whole bunch of lemmings, dozens and dozens of the little blighters desperate to get away from it all. Fortunately you have been given god-like powers to smarten some of them up...

In each of the 140 screens there's a start point where the dumb but cute critters are dropped, and an exit. The aim of the game is to guide the lemmings from one to the other without them being burnt up, drowned, crushed, splattered, hung or simply lost in the wilderness when time runs out. This is no easy task as your basic lemming will continue walking straight on until some hazard extinguishes his little life. To stop this you need your smart lemmings.

To smarten a lemming up you simply click on the skill you want, then move the cursor over to the right lemming and press fire. You've now got a smart lemming, well sort of. The most basic kind of lemming is a Blocker which stands with its arms outstretched stopping anyone getting past. Obviously by using two you can contain the dumb lemmings indefinitely. Normally you'll do this after letting a few lemmings go ahead to start preparing a safe route. These trailblazers can be turned into Climbers which can clamber up vertical surfaces, and Floaters which survive big drops by using parachutes. There are also Builders which construct bridges, but they only work for a set period before stopping and bravely marching onwards (even if it's into a bottomless abyss). Fortunately, you can keep them working if you click on them as soon as they hold up their hands. If you can't go over an obstacle you might want to cut through it: there are three different types of Diggers - ones that go straight down, straight across and diagonally down. All the skills are limited though, so be careful to use them wisely.

Once you have a pathway cleared you can get rid of those Blockers. Sadly these 'brainy' lemmings aren't smart enough to be re-educated so you have to blow them up! Click on them, or any other lemming which has irritated you, and a five-second countdown appears over their head. At zero they shake their heads before exploding, blowing away quite a bit of the scenery too. Occasionally exploding a lemming is vital for clearing away a small obstacle - you have to be cruel to be kind in this game!

On each level there's a time limit and a percentage target - fail to rescue the required number of lemmings and it's end game time. You can also quit a level by clicking on apocalypse, which explodes all the lemmings - useful if everyone's got helplessly trapped. When you do die you're given the option of continuing - a password system ensures you never have to play a completed level again.

There are four skill levels to the game (Fun, Tricky, Taxing and Mayhem), each with thirty levels - you can choose to play any at the start. There's also a two-player mode with twenty screens: each player has his own exit but the lemmings are so dumb they'll walk through any exit. At the end of the level the player with the most lemmings wins, and saved lemmings are added to the number released on the next level. The two-player mode has a split-screen and the potential for mixing your lemmings in with your opponent's gives plenty of opportunity for sabotage!