Have You Played... Lemmings 2: The Tribes?

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.

So much time has passed that I'm not sure if my opinions about Lemmings 2 are contrary or against the grain. I didn't like it, having loved the original, which was the perfect blend of challenging puzzles and comic characters, I found The Tribes' larger skillset upset the sense of progression horribly.

In the original Lemmings, you move from level to level, getting a better appreciation as to how the few skills at your disposal can be used in different situations. In Lemmings 2, each of the twelve titular tribes has its own set of skills, and ten levels in which to utilise them. While some of the skills are repeated, with slightly different animations, the levels are built to accomodate a tribe's specialism.

On paper, it's a sound idea, but in practice it left me cold. You can play any set of levels in any order, and the fine difficulty curve of the original game is lost. I'm also much more attached to the minimalist lemmings of the original than any of the daft spin-offs.