For a while there, way back when, there wasn't a console without Lemmings. Its popularity spread far beyond its initial PC offerings, with Lemmings eventually making its way to the Sega Master System, the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Game Gear, Game Boy, and even the oft-forgotten Atari Lynx. Then, just like that, Lemmings disappeared. Entire hardware generations passed without nary a mention of the mindless marching fuzzballs. Now, however, they're back. And with the capabilities of the PSP behind them, the results may be one of the best versions of Lemmings on any system.

The premise behind the series is simple: Help the clueless bundles of fur navigate through various obstacles and try to keep as many of them among the living as possible. The marching lemmings can be assigned various tasks, be it to dig a tunnel, block other lemmings from passing, build a bridge, or even to explode. Clever use of these abilities then allows most, if not all, of the lemmings to make it past a level's exit unscathed, but players must be careful as each ability can only be used a set number of times.

The various jobs of lemmings and their abilities can be a lot to take it at first, thankfully the early levels are built with this in mind. These early stages focus on familiarizing players with both the various classes, introduced a few at a time, and also the intuitive control scheme.

This control scheme is a good part of the reason Lemmings works so well on the PSP, making clever use of the provided controls. The d-pad moves the cursor, used to select individual lemmings. The shoulder buttons quickly switch between the various classes, with a tap of X near a lemming assigning the selected position. Meanwhile, the triangle button zooms the camera in for a closer look at the action and the analog stick pans said camera around the level. And ensuring players don't spend their time neither overwhelmed by the lemmings' speed nor bored by their slow progress, Start pauses time, while circle causes everything to move in fast forward. Unlike past console iterations of Lemmings, the PSP's is the first to provide this level of immediate control.

In another smart decision, players need not play through these simple early levels should they choose not to. Lemmings has no qualms if players opt to jump right into the trickier stages, the full selection of jobs and a multitude of obstacles available within seconds thanks to the game's short load times. All of the game's levels aren't available from the get-go though. Only a few levels of each difficulty set are initially selectable, with more unlocked as the initial stages are cleared. And with stages taking an average of five to fifteen minutes to clear, the Lemmings gameplay is a good match for the portable system.

All together, Lemmings features over 150 levels on the disc, with additional levels up for download from the official website. Furthermore, the included level editor allows players to make their own custom levels using the game's high resolution art assets, which can then be uploaded and shared via the title's online functionality. This also lets players download and play levels uploaded by others, meaning that Lemming's appeal doesn't expire after completing the on-disc stages.

The only criticism of Lemmings lies with the brand itself. As mentioned previously, there was a time when Lemmings was so saturated it was on every console, and many undoubtedly grew tired of the rodents then. And despite its intuitive control scheme and numerous levels, the PSP iteration does little to change the core Lemmings gameplay of generations past. That's not particularly a bad thing, but returning veterans shouldn't expect a fresh new experience when booting this up.