I was at VintageStock today, and I noticed that they had an old
Atari Lynx plus ten games for far more that I should have paid for them. The Atari Lynx came out at the same time as the Game Boy, but due to its high price at launch ($190) and the fact that Nintendo had gotten pretty much all of the good third-party developers except Epyx, it failed miserably, sinking Atari even deeper into their financial hole. I bought the package anyway, just for shits and giggles, and it's great. It still blows me away how good games like
Blue Lightning and
California Games are.
The complete game list:
A.P.B. - top-down driving game where you have to chase criminals and arrest them. I give it 6/10 for irritating controls but decent gameplay.
Batman Returns - decent Batman side-scroller where you get one life to complete the whole game and if you die you have to start over. It is the hardest game in the whole world. 7/10 for good controls and gameplay but rape-like difficulty.
Blue Lightning - Excellent air combat game where you're shooting down enemy planes in third-person. Tight controls and fast-paced gameplay. 9/10 for a great game that's a little hard to see what's going on in because of the oversized plane sprites.
California Games - Epyx's classic sports minigame collection. This one includes BMX, hacky-sack, surfing, and skateboarding. 10/10 for variety, good graphics, and ease of play.
Checkered Flag - Third-person racing game similar to Pole Position. Good graphics and a large variety of tracks give this one a 9/10.
Chip's Challenge - The fact that I now have a portable version of Chip's Challenge is enough to justify the cost of the whole bundle. 10/10 just because.
Gauntlet: The Third Encounter - It's Gauntlet. This one makes use of the Lynx's vertical screen mode. Also you can play as a pirate so I'm sold. 6/10 for good graphics but somewhat frustrating controls. Actually make that 8/10 because of the pirate.
Pit-Fighter - Ugh. I don't like fighting games, but this one is just bad. 2/10 for decent graphics.
Steel Talons - Helicopter combat game. Pretty big and fun, but it only gets 6/10 because of the poor framerate and abysmal graphics. Seriously guys, this game came out three years after the Lynx and you couldn't make it look better than
this?
Warbirds - First-person WWI biplane combat. Very nice and good-looking. A solid air combat game, though not
quite as good as Blue Lightning. 8/10.
Also, I was reading an article on AtariTimes.com, and they were speculating where the Lynx would be now if they had continued their pattern of technological innovation rather than going under.
It would fall between the PSX and Sega Dreamcast in terms of power. It would likely have a 64-bit processor and would have moved away from carts in favor of using mini-CDs capable of storing over 300 megabytes worth of data. It would be capable of 16.7 million colors on screen at one time, and have a resolution of 320x200 on a screen no bigger than 4 inches wide. A powerful 100 MHz processor would drive the Lynx V and you would be playing games along the lines of Dead or Alive 2 on it.
They've just decribed something pretty damn close to the PSP. Funnily, that was written in October of 2002, a good year and a half before Sony unveiled the PSP, and two and a half years before it was released.
So, yeah. Post your Lynx stories, all 2 of you who owned one.
I was at VintageStock today, and I noticed that they had an old [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Lynx]Atari Lynx[/url] plus ten games for far more that I should have paid for them. The Atari Lynx came out at the same time as the Game Boy, but due to its high price at launch ($190) and the fact that Nintendo had gotten pretty much all of the good third-party developers except Epyx, it failed miserably, sinking Atari even deeper into their financial hole. I bought the package anyway, just for shits and giggles, and it's great. It still blows me away how good games like [b]Blue Lightning[/b] and [b]California Games[/b] are.
The complete game list:
[b]A.P.B.[/b] - top-down driving game where you have to chase criminals and arrest them. I give it 6/10 for irritating controls but decent gameplay.
[b]Batman Returns[/b] - decent Batman side-scroller where you get one life to complete the whole game and if you die you have to start over. It is the hardest game in the whole world. 7/10 for good controls and gameplay but rape-like difficulty.
[b]Blue Lightning[/b] - Excellent air combat game where you're shooting down enemy planes in third-person. Tight controls and fast-paced gameplay. 9/10 for a great game that's a little hard to see what's going on in because of the oversized plane sprites.
[b]California Games[/b] - Epyx's classic sports minigame collection. This one includes BMX, hacky-sack, surfing, and skateboarding. 10/10 for variety, good graphics, and ease of play.
[b]Checkered Flag[/b] - Third-person racing game similar to Pole Position. Good graphics and a large variety of tracks give this one a 9/10.
[b]Chip's Challenge[/b] - The fact that I now have a portable version of Chip's Challenge is enough to justify the cost of the whole bundle. 10/10 just because.
[b]Gauntlet: The Third Encounter[/b] - It's Gauntlet. This one makes use of the Lynx's vertical screen mode. Also you can play as a pirate so I'm sold. 6/10 for good graphics but somewhat frustrating controls. Actually make that 8/10 because of the pirate.
[b]Pit-Fighter[/b] - Ugh. I don't like fighting games, but this one is just bad. 2/10 for decent graphics.
[b]Steel Talons[/b] - Helicopter combat game. Pretty big and fun, but it only gets 6/10 because of the poor framerate and abysmal graphics. Seriously guys, this game came out three years after the Lynx and you couldn't make it look better than [url=http://www.atariage.com/Lynx/screenshots/s_SteelTalons_6.png]this[/url]?
[b]Warbirds[/b] - First-person WWI biplane combat. Very nice and good-looking. A solid air combat game, though not [i]quite[/i] as good as Blue Lightning. 8/10.
Also, I was reading an article on AtariTimes.com, and they were speculating where the Lynx would be now if they had continued their pattern of technological innovation rather than going under.
[quote]It would fall between the PSX and Sega Dreamcast in terms of power. It would likely have a 64-bit processor and would have moved away from carts in favor of using mini-CDs capable of storing over 300 megabytes worth of data. It would be capable of 16.7 million colors on screen at one time, and have a resolution of 320x200 on a screen no bigger than 4 inches wide. A powerful 100 MHz processor would drive the Lynx V and you would be playing games along the lines of Dead or Alive 2 on it.
[/quote]
They've just decribed something pretty damn close to the PSP. Funnily, that was written in October of 2002, a good year and a half before Sony unveiled the PSP, and two and a half years before it was released.
So, yeah. Post your Lynx stories, all 2 of you who owned one.