Sortie with sharks
THE title, Lemming Syndrome, conjured up all sorts of ideas
and fantasies, and I was not disappointed by Dynabyte Software's
interpretation.
Mad Marco, the potty programmer (does this remind you of anyone?)
has blown up the bridge to the mainland and is on the rampage.
The only escape for the fleeing people of the island is to jump
like lemmings into the shark-infested waters. Which is where you
come in.
As Lifeboat Lennie - well you have to be known as something
- your job is to bounce the people to safety across the water
on your liferaft.
You must be careful not to fall into the jaws of the awaiting
sharks and you must avoid Mad Marko's attempts to blow up the
raft.
The setting is visually very attractive with vivid use of colour
and sound. I especially liked the shrieks from the doomed people,
falling prey to the sharks and the water.
The instructions are clear and concise with many options, but
the game is nevertheless fairly limited.
When 50 of the population are killed you just start your mission
again.
There are five variations of speed, and an option for changing
the level of difficulty. However I found the latter to be no more
than an option aligned to the speed.
Feeling a little cheated, I also found that, for me at least,
increased speed just made the game impossible.
I am, however, quite willing to concede that this was a failing
on mine and not the game's part!
You can also choose between absolute and proportional control
for your raft, and this definitely enhances the game.
Proportional control enables you to move left and right, whereas
absolute control moves you to three predestined positions - to
the left, middle and right of the ocean.
The latter of these two methods is the easier for rescuing people
and thus provides its own variations on degree of difficulty.
This game is certainly no show-stopper. But despite its limitations
I found it to have the same sort of hypnotic appeal as one of
those pocket computer games that you claim to tire of very easily
but can't seem to put down.
Isobel Suart
