Best game ever.
To the pits of hell with anyone who disagrees.
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Okay, now for my non GameFAQer review.
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The Adventures of Lomax is a unique Lemmings game in more ways than one. First off, it's the only Lemmings game that isn't a Puzzle game; it's an action platformer. Secondly, it's the only Lemmings game that was never available for the computer. So, the only non-puzzle Lemmings game was only available for the Sony Playstation? Odd!
If you don't have the game's manual, you're not going to have a bloody CLUE what this game is about. There's no intro movie in the game, so you'll be starting the game wondering why lemming-like goblins are attacking you, and why they turn into lemmings when you smack them. Well, there's this bad guy by the name of Evil Ed. He's a powerful, evil lemming sorceror who hexed all the lemmings into slaves. He somehow missed Lomax and Lorock, a creepy lemming wizard who I found more frightening than Evil Ed.
Let me just say this - King Lemming doesn't hold a candle to the evil and power of Evil Ed. If Evil Ed and King Lemming got into a fight, King Lemming would get stomped into reddish-orange, squishy paste. King Lemming can't... well, get the game and fight Evil Ed to find out what Ed can do that KL can't.
The graphics are clear, but a little bit on the dull side. Judging by the game's ugly cover, you probably wouldn't have known this game was about lemmings. But in the actual game you can definitely tell they're supposed to be lemmings. Lomax is a lemming knight. I can't say if this is a reference to the Medieval tribe of Lemmings 2, but eh. There are some interesting features, like the butterflies flying around the forground of the first Medieval stage, or the skull that passes by the front of the screen in some of the Horror stages. And there's parallax scrolling is everywhere in this game! Or as well call it here, parallomax scrolling!
I LOVE this game's music! From the time I heard the fanfare on the title screen and the demo of the Ghost Ship I knew this game's music would be good. I made some .wma dumps of the music (this is one of only a handful of PSX game I've run into where you can put the disc into a CD player and listen to the music. The other two are Wild 9 and 3D Lemmings), but they don't sound as good though the headphones and speakers. You need stereo speakers and a subwoofer to hear the full juice of this game.
Appearantly this game's sound was enhanced with something called Q-Sound. While there's an explanation of it in the game's manual, I still don't have any real idea what it is. But I think it has to do with these sound effects you can hear, such as birds chirping, a cow mooing (?!), or the wind blowing.
The controls are a little bit loose. When you let go, Lomax will continue walking for about a second. Normally this isn't much of a problem, and it's easy enough to adapt. But half the reason the Evil Ed stages suck is control issues, although it may just be an amplification of the loose controls thanks to damn air geysers.
The point of the game is to free Lemmingland from the clutches of Evil Ed. To do this, Lomax must use his in-born lemming skills such as building and bashing. But as with any lemming, the number of times he can do any of these things is limited. Actually, it's pretty much infinite in this game, just so long as you can find icons that give Lomax usages of the skill. But the helicopter is VERY limited, since you're required to use it only three times in the entire game, and all of those times in the Horror world. If you have some left over when you get to the other two worlds (you'll probably have 4 left), use them wisely.
The game is indeed rather hard. With some practice, the first three worlds become somewhat easy. But come the Evil Ed stages... hope you maxed out your lives, 'cause even if you're good you're gonna need 'em.
Overall, a good game. And a very good one for a Lemming fanatic like myself. But it's a rather rare game, so good luck finding it.
8/10
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I'm not trying for Review of the Year with this. I think I wrote this in an hour.
I'll get a few screenshots once I hook my PSX into my computer.
Where are these lemmings going? The Super Nintendo Super Shire! Hop in line and follow them there!
