[taps papers] Mmkay!
Well welcome, everyone, to the third annual meeting of the Creepy Christmas Clones!
Uh let's get some paperwork outta the way, we got the attendance,
just gonna get that on the record.
Harblenargle, that is me. Obviously I am here so, check that off.
Flarbnorp?
-Christmas!
[left clone glitching] Okay, Kleebneeb?
-Christmas!
[right clone glitching out] Mmhmm.
And Bob, where is Bob?
[off-camera] -"Christmas!"
He's still out in the hallway, whatever.
[random clone glitching] That's pretty much everybody I guess, so.
Eh anyway, yeah!
How's it been going?
Y'know it's been a good, good few years of doing this.
We've had some good camera tricks, some editing shenanigans,
and plotlines that are confusing and don't go anywhere.
So that's good, good work.
Uh. And yeah.
I don't even know what else we're talkin' about.
We're clones. [clones continue glitching]
Right so!
With that outta the way, does anyone have any input on where we go from here?
Do-- [clones in unison] "Chrismaaaassss!"
[chaotic glitchfest of clone noises]
Yeah, that's about what I figured.
Well. It's time for Christmas Lazy Game Reviews!
[clone chaos continues incessantly]
[Holiday Hare's "Carol of the Bells" plays]
[can hisses]
[sips] "Ahh!"
[typing]
Lemmings!
I honestly don’t know how many of these games I’ve covered on LGR over the years,
with at least four of them being holiday variants.
But who cares, here’s one more!
Namely, 3D Lemmings Winterland: a special seasonal demo for 1995’s 3D Lemmings,
distributed through magazine cover discs.
There was also a limited retail edition sold in stores in the same box as the full game,
just with an appropriately wintry sleeve, or sometimes a sticker, signifying that it
came with new six levels of wintry wonder.
As for ‘3D Lemmings’ itself, also called ‘Lemmings 3D’ depending on the box art,
it was published by Psygnosis in 1995 for DOS PCs,
and later the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation.
And it’s the first Lemmings developed not by DMA Design, but by Clockwork Games.
Prior to this they went by Lunatic Software, and were primarily known for creating 2D shooters
for the Commodore Amiga, like Necronom and Cytron.
And they ended up being contracted to bring classic 2D Lemmings into the exciting world
of 3D, a bandwagon just about everyone was beginning to jump on in the mid 90s.
That meant open-ended 3D environments, a freely movable camera,
and levels that snake around in all directions.
And in terms of gameplay, it more or less ignores the detours taken
by Lemmings 2 and Lemmings Chronicles.
There are no more tribes with unique costumes, flying or musical skills, collecting abilities,
or the option to give lemmings multiple tasks.
Instead it goes back to the basic Lemmings 1 skillset, with predetermined allotments
of skills available to complete each level.
Turner Lemmings are the main addition here, which act like classic Blocker Lemmings, except
they force followers to turn left or right in order to navigate corners.
Otherwise the biggest addition is the 3D camera, and you’ve still got the typical on-screen
controls for fast forward, pausing, flow speed, and skills.
There is a notable learning curve with the 3D stuff, but it’s designed in such a way
that it eases the player in level by level.
And if that’s still too overwhelming, 3D Lemmings also offers a ♪practice mooooode♫
with an assortment of maps dedicated to teaching each individual skill
and 3D block type one by one.
And with that, let’s move onto 3D Lemmings Winterland, which kicks off with the same
intro logos and menu screens as the full version of 3D Lemmings.
As is tradition, there’s only one starting level available with the rest unlocking as
you play, for a total of six by the end.
Though the practice mode is now gone, meaning there are now no tutorials at all.
Heh, so much for easing you into the game.
Instead, Winterland drops you straight into the action, with lemmings flowing out of the
entrance with nothing on their agenda but a swift, painful death.
Until you do something about it, at least!
The lemmings may still be 2D sprites but they die no less gruesomely without your involvement,
and this time around you’ve gotta navigate a 3D world to keep them alive.
Each level takes place on an unseen grid of square blocks stacked on top of one another,
with individual square blocks hinted at by certain textures.
Some blocks are flat, some are slanted, some have water textures,
some are made of soil or rock.
And many are covered in ice or snow, which cause lemmings to slip and slide until they
come into contact with a walkable surface again.
So your task is to provide each lemming with the appropriate skill at the exact right time
so that they’re able to guide their siblings safely to the exit.
With the skills in this demo being blocker, turner, bomber, builder,
basher, miner, digger, and climber.
Most levels only require a few skills at once, and your task is to make the best use of them
to navigate the map from entrance to exit without killing too many critters.
Block them from walking off ledges, build bridges over hazards, dig tunnels under walls,
and remove obstacles by strategically detonating them as required.
[“Oh no!” *EXPLODES*]
In prior 2D Lemmings titles, whatcha had to do and where you needed to go was pretty
apparent from the start, with an obvious exit door and quickly discernible terrain and hazards.
But with Lemmings 3D, it’s wise to pause and take extra time before each level to float
across the map, rotate around corners, and see what’s what.
You also have 3D previews before a level loads, but I mean.
It’s not exactly the most useful thing to look at since it’s all zoomed out and spinning
so fast at such a low resolution.
It does at least show the number of lemmings you’re dealing with and the difficulty rating,
but that’s about it.
So yeah, it’s worth taking time to wander the map, see which blocks are in the way,
and what skills to prioritize before you even let
a single lemming begin walking through the puzzle.
And even before that, you’ll have to solve
what is perhaps 3D Lemmings’s toughest puzzle of all:
the early 3D camera.
Yeeeeah.
Early 3D cameras were like the improvised dive bar comedy sketches of mid-90s gaming:
you never really knew what you’d get, you felt a bit drunk, and it often wasn’t amusing.
Each early 3D camera played by slightly different rules, finding unique ways of obstructing
the player’s view while also never quite showing enough of a view at any given moment.
And Lemmings 3D Winterland 3D Lemmings 3D lives up to that reputation by having its
own camera that can be an absolute chore to deal with.
Each map has four preset cameras to cycle through,
which are often helpful in pointing out areas of interest.
But you’ll still need to take it off the virtual tripod and float around feely, controlled
using either the keyboard, the mouse, or some hybrid of the two depending on your preferences.
There was also support for the Logitech Cyberman 3D game controller, which ah.
Yeah that’s a device we’ll have to revisit sometime in the future if I think about it.
But regardless of your chosen input method, fighting with the camera is a skill as important
as any other in 3D Lemmings 3D Winterland.
Not only due to the iffy controls, but because the camera is treated as a physical in-game
item, slamming up against walls, floors, ceilings, and objects.
So whenever you’re moving back, forward, left, right, up, down, or rotating, you’ll
also have to worry about parts of the level getting in the way
preventing you from doing any of that.
For this reason, it’s important to make use of the new Virtual Lemming, or VL mode,
activated by clicking the face in the bottom-left.
Looking around in first-person is more than a gimmick here, it’s a necessity in some
levels since the camera can’t physically reach inside certain areas that you need to
see in order to apply skills.
An alternative is making use of the arrow tool,
which lets you select a lemming before applying a skill.
This way you can tell them what to do even if you can’t see them, or you can’t get
a bead on the exact one you want in a large crowd.
Chances are you’ll still get the timing wrong pretty often, especially if you haven’t
yet nailed down exactly how the unseen grid of blocks works.
So thankfully, Replay Mode makes a return from Lemmings Chronicles, which lets you watch
an instant replay of the actions you just performed and failed at, with the ability
to let you take over at any time and continue from the point right before you failed.
And if it’s still too frustrating, you can always take a break and pop right back to
where you left off with the right password.
Alphabetic level selection is back in the main menu, and it might just be the best iteration
of this in the series, visually-speaking.
Heck it’s one of the most excellent text entry screens I’ve seen in any game at all.
I love watching all the old 2D lemming sprites
form whatever 8-character word or phrase you type in.
I dunno, it’s oddly addictive.
And I spent far longer messing around with this silliness than I’d care to admit.
Less enjoyable is the Nuke option, which in 3D Lemmings isn’t nearly as fun to watch
due to the explosion animation used.
Compared to the rapid sequence of exploding rodent
fireworks you got in the 2D games?
Yeah, there’s no comparison.
[lemmings shout "Oh no!" repeatedly as they pop]
At least the music is pretty good stuff, with Winterland here using several of the same
bouncy FM synth songs from 3D Lemmings,
at least when that one was played without CD audio.
[bouncy FM synth tunes]
Unfortunately there’s no seasonal holiday-themed music going on,
which is quite the missed opportunity.
Even worse though is the fact that, I mean.
Just look at those lemmings.
Look at them!
They’re wearing blue!
Sure it’s their classic outfit, but c’mon.
It’s Christmas!
Or at least, Christmas-adjacent holiday fun times,
so not putting them in red Santa suits is just unfortunate.
Every other holiday Lemmings game had them in cute little Santa getups
with little bouncing hats, and it was perfect.
So the fact that these tiny sprites from 1991 have a thousand times more personality than
these comparatively high-res sprites from 1995 is downright sad.
For that matter, I find the entire presentation to be significantly less appealing in Lemmings
3D than I do any of the Lemmings 2D games, wintry or otherwise.
I mean it’s really not too bad for 1995, but ehh.
It’s simply not ideal for a puzzle game that relies on meticulous time-based puzzle-solving.
It’d help if there was an option for higher resolutions, but nope.
There’s no way I’m aware of to adjust the resolution, only the texture mapping.
Oh and the window size, which makes things even smaller
so you’d get better performance on lower-end PCs.
A fascinating exercise in dealing with old school technical limitations and early 3D
game design, but that’s about it.
Ah well, it’s not like it outstays its welcome.
Those 6 demo levels pass by in half an hour if you know what you’re doing.
And when you do complete it, you’re given a text-filled teaser.
Which comes across more like a threat than a tempting proposition.
A hundred more levels?!
Oh no! No no no.
I can only take so much of that camera.
And by extension, I can only take so much of Lemmings 3D Lemmings Winterland 3D.
Like, for an early three-dimensional translation of a 2D classic,
it’s honestly not that bad.
And I appreciate that Clockwork went back to the basics in terms of lemming abilities
and gameplay structure.
But the comfy winter theme, catchy AdLib music, and adorable rodent deaths only help so much
when you’re running up against a clunky 3D camera and low-res maps that make it harder
than it should be to see what you’re doing.
[jazzed-up Christmas music]
And if you enjoy this ho-ho-holiday retrospective on LGR
then check out all the ones I've done in years past.
Or stick around for more videos on more things, I've always got stuff in the works.
And as always, thank you for watching!