| paleface [sys=PS1; cat=Platformer; reg=NA] |
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"Lomax's incredibly detailed 2D animation is reminiscent of Metal Slug."
Psygnosis did a lot of nice 2D stuff on the Amiga before they got bought by Sony--you may remember a little title called "Lemmings," for instance. Well, after going over to the Sony side they pumped out a platformer starring one of those green-haired, suicidal rodent-men. His name? Lomax.
Lomax dashes headfirst through relatively short platform-filled levels, using a spinning jump attack and helmet-fling to purge evil spirits from captured lemmings. Once in a long while (at least to start off) you get a voucher for using some of ye olde Lemmings abilities--the only one I've got so far is building a stairway, which you have to use to get over a large gap right after getting the ability.
So why in the world is this special, you ask? Well, the controls are spot on, but most notably, the 2D graphics and Q-Sound are both gorgeous. The incredibly fluid and detailed animation reminds me quite a bit of Nazca's work (on such games as "Metal Slug 3," see entry 170), except that it is more colorful and has more planes of parallax scrolling, and Psygnosis was able to make nice use of sprite rotation to enhance bot the animation and the gameplay: Lomax can topple over branches for bridges, run on top of spinning barrels, teeter on perilously-swaying tree-trunks, etc. It's just a shame that Sony went away from this type of thing to pure 3D, because Lomax shows just how impressive 2D could be on the PlayStation.
The action gets intense without much ado and seriously challenges my weak platforming abilities. Death-drops and drowning pools can be found at the end of every platform, and there are a surprising number of platforms packed in to each little level. You get a limited number of continues, then it's Game Over. While you still have continues left you can get a password--no save game here, unfortunately.
Difficult as it is, this is obviously a quality production, and nice enough to inspire me to continue struggling away at it, at least until it breaks me. |
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| | | They might have gone a little too hard on the animation: the main character throws frames everywhere and semi-transparent sprites are constantly blowing across the screen. Also the colors are kind of subdued, so the end result looks a bit blorpy. But this is me being lazy and not actually getting the game out to play myself.
Also, this being a Lemmings game, you pick from 6 Lemmings abilities to use from a pop-up rotary menu. : P Actually there are a heck of a lot of buttons (from PC version manual http://www.replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.624 ):
- Ability Selection Menu
- Jump/Spin
- Throw Helmet
- Activate ability
- Use Extra Helmet
- Run
and also maybe "Look Up" and "Look Down." |
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