One casual day, I pulled up Internet Explorer, brought up Flying Omelette's forum, and noticed there was a topic entitled "Hey Codie..." I clicked it, and it was a topic informing me of a peculiar game - a Playstation platformer featuring Lemmings. In instantly started my search for it. This game isn't very common, and goes for an average of $20 for a complete copy on eBay (just the disc goes cheaper, obviously). I did eventually get a copy, and when it arrived in the mail and I got it in my hands, I almost gagged. Not in pure glee, mind you. This game has one of the creepiest cover arts I have ever seen, right up there with Castlevania Bloodlines.


PH33R MY MENACING SMILE!

Somebody also felt the need to stick that ugly mug both on the back of the manual, and on the picture that's revealed when you remove the disc. Thankfully, the in-game graphics are much more tolerable. Lomax is actually kind of cute in the game, but now it's Lorock who's frightening children.

In the game, you play as Lomax the lemming knight on his quest to save Lemmingland from the curse of the dark lemming sorceror...


EVIL ED!!!!

...who somehow managed to miss the good leming knight Lomax, the one who would take the long, painful trek to Evil Ed's castle and strike him down with his legendary sword and restore peace and tranquility to Lemmingland.

Okay, so while Evil Ed cursed Lemmingland, he doesn't have a castle. He has some kind of void with lost lemming souls flying around, and some flying boulders with things resembling castles on them. I guess that counts, but there's about a hundred of these things, so which one Ed resides in, we'll never know. And Lomax doesn't have a sword. He attacks by spinning around and tackling enemies, and lobbing his helmet at them.

And Lomax's journey isn't exactly all that long. It's hard, but the game can be completed in less than two hours if you're decent at it. While its very fun at the start, and the Evil Ed stages sport some interesting level designs, towards the end of the game, it starts to feel rushed. There's only three Evil Ed stages in all, one of which is just a medium length path with several pain in the butt jumps, then the showdown with Ed himself. And the game's ending sucks eggs. The disc can be inserted into a CD player and the sountrack can be listened to. There's two songs on there that are nowhere in the actual game, and sound like ending music. Is there some incredible feat you have to accomplish to get the real ending? I can't imagine what it could be. I've gone through the entire game three times, and on my last time through I did it in one sitting using no Continues. If the "Good Ending" comes about by doing it without dying, nuts to that. Those jumps in the last Evil Ed stages eat lives for breakfast.

Reader Tigt the Bandit had this to say:
I managed to get my hands on Adventures of Lomax a while ago, and I actually DID beat the game without losing any lives, with a lot of luck. I noticed the part of the Lemmings revamp where you wondered whether the ending would change if you did said feat, and guess what? NO CHANGE. It’s the same crappy ending. Hope this helps.

So, the mystery of the unused tracks remains unsolved, but the book is closed on the chance of multiple endings.

I say what happened was Psygnosis was taking their time, composed the music, but then had to slap the end of the game together and throw it on the shelves. There's also what appears to be a female lemming on the cover between the zombie lemming and Lomax's cape. She's nowhere in the game.

If you'd like to see just what the game's ending is like, I've written an entire page dedicated to everything from the showdown with Ed to the fadeout after the credits. It should go without saying that it contains spoilers (not that there's a lot there to spoil).

My Lomax Ending Snyopsis

As far as I know, there's only a Playstation version, but I stumbed upon some information that hints at a PC counterpart. I'm guessing all that was ever released of the PC version was a demo, as that's all I could find. No information on any full PC game, and I have yet to see it on eBay.

UPDATE: A PC version does indeed exist, and I own a copy. But judging by the packaging, it came from Europe (although I got it from an American seller); the description on the back is in English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian, each marked with respective European flags. Perhaps the PC version was never comercially released in America. It should also be noted that the name on the packaging is simply "Lomax", which curiously is all the PSX version's title screen calls it.


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