THE ATARI LYNX, A FORGOTTEN GEM

In the early 1990’s, when it came to handheld gaming, Nintendo’s almighty white brick, the Game Boy, ruled the roost well and truly, that’s despite its hard to see monochrome screen and primitive looking games. Those games however were downright fun and addictive. And with the tied in third parties churning out games en masse as well as a more than friendly battery life, it almost swept up the entire handheld market. Even I was an owner of one of these white bricks as a kid.

But even though it was the most successful, it wasn’t my favourite.

You see, it did have competition at that time. Of which there were two massive notables. Both of which were technically superior and had backlit colour screens but went through batteries like they were going out of fashion.

The first was SEGA’s offering, the Game Gear. Like the Game Boy, it was an 8-bit machine and used the same Zilog Z80 CPU architecture but with a bit more horsepower, enough actually to make it technically a portable Master System (as proven with the sold separately Master System Adapter) and it sold reasonably well at around 10 million units, minuscule compared to the Game Boy’s 118 million.

And it had a more than decent games library, a big chunk of its releases were lower resolution Master System ports.

Its downside? Well it ate batteries very quick (6 of them), even the best AA’s at the time would get you just over 3 hours tops. Plus the LCD screen itself was not the best quality despite it being backlit. Cheap capacitors installed on its motherboard were prone to leaking hence the system’s poor reliability record. Therefore its very common to see on eBay Game Gear’s sold as ‘refurbished’.

THE UNFAIRLY MALIGNED BEAST

But its the third system that I consider my most favourite handheld of that era, a system that saw just 72 official games released in its 6 year lifespan, that is the Atari Lynx.

As previously mentioned, I did have a Game Boy as a kid but I knew a friend that owned a Lynx and after seeing it for the first time, I have to admit I was in awe. I had not seen a Game Gear before the Lynx so it was the first time I saw a colour screen handheld console, the game he showed me I remember was STUN Runner, which was visually stunning. I remember going home afterwards thinking (as a 10 year old kid would think) “Why isn’t my system a colour one?”

Of course, growing older and wiser, you get to understand why that was the case but back then, I still remained in jealous amazement. It wasn’t until around 2013 when I finally managed to find a boxed Lynx of my own in near mint condition and with its original box (pictured above) and finally being able to learn and understand this beast.

The Lynx was a totally different kettle of fish compared to its Z80 based competition. It was far more powerful and was capable of much more impressive visuals that one would easily find on the 16 bit consoles of the time. Instead of the Z80 CPU, it used a lower powered variation of the MOS 6502 CPU (Found in most of the 8-Bit computers like the BBC Micro, the Acorn Electron and Atari’s own 8-bit computer line) known as the WDC 65C02. This helped the Lynx be able to perform complex graphic techniques like sprite zooming and distortion.

Above is a prime example, arguably the most technically impressive game ever made for the handheld, Steel Talons. The extra power under the hood allowed the Lynx to be able to push some polygons without additional chips in cartridges. Sure the ridiculously slow framerate of the game renders the game almost unplayable but the title itself was proof of what Atari’s handheld was truly capable of. Specification wise, it blew the Game Boy out of the water and then some.

Compared to the Game Gear, the Lynx was by far superior technically, the Model 2 version especially as it had a much better LCD screen, an overall better build quality and much improved battery life compared to its original elongated model. In fact with battery technology improving, you can get around 6 hours (maybe even seven) with a more than decent set of long life batteries in today’s market.

A HANDHELD ARCADE

One factor that really hamstrung Atari (and SEGA for that matter) was the lack of 3rd party support to develop software. Most of the major development houses were locked down by Nintendo’s anti-competition 3rd party policies of the time. Atari attempted to make up for the shortfall by firstly enlisting Epyx (who originally designed and developed the Lynx when it had the prototype name of ‘The Handy’) as an onboard software developer and also tap into the arcades to produce watered down ports of major arcade titles. This along with 3rd party houses that had not yet been tied down by Nintendo’s draconian contracts like Williams, Telegames, Namco and Psygnosis.

And the above example (Roadblasters) was an excellent showcase of how good an arcade port the Lynx could output. It showed how powerful the Lynx was and Atari pushed this hard in its sales pitch to sell the Lynx to the public.

Unfortunately though, those aforementioned 3rd party contracts Nintendo had at the time and a lack of original software meant the Lynx was an unfortunate 3rd in the market. They simply could not compete with Nintendo’s grip on the handheld market with that 3rd party lockdown as well as their far superior first party lineup. SEGA fared better with the Game Gear as they had a decent in house lineup of their own.

Still though, the Lynx managed in the end to sell around 3 million units. That doesn’t sound like a lot in comparison to the competition and today’s sales numbers, but its worth remembering, this was the late 80’s/early 90’s. 3 million back then was still a very sizeable number sold.

MY EXPERIENCE WITH IT

Over the last 7 years, I’ve found the Lynx to be a fun system to collect for although in recent years, asking prices for certain games have gone through the roof. However, that hasn’t stopped me from collecting a good number of the 72 officially released titles. Here’s my picks of the best five games available and also for good prices if you’re looking to begin collecting for the Lynx.

BLUE LIGHTNING (Epyx – 1989) – COMMON eBAY VALUE: £10-£15

This clone of SEGA’s arcade hit After Burner was a launch title for the Lynx that also acted as the system’s tech demo, showing off nearly all of the Lynx’s graphical tricks like scaling sprites. At the time it looked absolutely stunning.

However this title fixed the main problem I’ve always had with After Burner, that being the game play being a bit too fast for my liking, it is a very hectic game that is very difficult to keep track of if you’re not careful.. This however is played at a much more manageable pace (much more suitable for a handheld device). Also unlike After Burner you have limited ammunition in terms of missiles bringing an extra ammo management factor into the game play. Like After Burner though, its the same “one hit and you’re dead” system.

This a great cheap beginner in terms of Lynx collecting, a brilliant early showcase of the handheld.

Ms PAC MAN (Namco – 1990) – COMMON eBAY VALUE: £15-£25

As far as PacMan games go, this is one of my personal favourite of the classic series. I’ve logged many many hours of this on the Mega Drive and the Master System but until this excellent Lynx port, I had never played a portable version.

This game is a full recreation of the arcade original with all of the mazes included. Also included is a second set of elongated mazes. The original arcade difficulty though designed to eat 20p pieces is in full swing though which is a bit of a downside. Especially as the console ports included adjustable difficulties.

However its the additional mazes that give this Lynx version a bit more of a plus. In the console ports, you get 4 different maze sets. These being ‘Arcade’, ‘Normal’, ‘Big’ and ‘Strange’. The Lynx combines both the Arcade and Normal sets which for a portable is more than enough.

Again like Blue Lightning, this is a great beginners title for collectors.

S.T.U.N. RUNNER (Namco – 1991) – COMMON eBAY VALUE: £15-£25

The Lynx is a haven for portable 1980’s/early 90’s arcade conversions, and this in my opinion is the most impressive of them from a technical standpoint. Not just in graphics but unlike Steel Talons, it  maintains a good framerate and a more than reasonable level of playability.

The only downside is the graphics themselves have had to be massively scaled down in order for the game to fit on a Lynx screen, as a result, its heavily pixelated and it can often be difficult to see upcoming powerups and enemies. But you can get around these limitations through trial and error.

And once you do, the game is incredible fun. Like Blue Lightining, the game is very commonly found at a cheap price so it is another great starter’s game

ROBOTRON 2084 (Williams/Shadowsoft – 1991) – COMMON eBAY VALUE: £25-£35

Visuals are one thing, but game play is an even more important factor. And the Lynx  port of Robotron 2084, an arcade classic from 1982 for me is an excellent example.

The original arcade game used two joysticks, one to move and the other to fire in any of 8 directions. However the Lynx only had a D-Pad and 2 buttons. To get around these control limitations. Your character is permanently set to auto-fire its weapon and will fire in the direction which you are moving.

At first glance it could be considered a watered down control method but for handheld play it actually works perfectly for handheld play seeing as these sort of games are designed to be played in short bursts.

At the time, this was the only version of Robotron ever released for a handheld. It didn’t sell well though so its not exactly easy to find. Those that do crop up on eBay tend to be around £25 at least for a loose cart.

LEMMINGS (Psygnosis/DMA Design – 1993) – COMMON eBAY VALUE: £45-£60

Aah Lemmings, one of my all time favourite gaming franchises, for me, the ultimate relaxing gaming experience. The game itself is built around landscape based logic puzzles with the goal being to guide a group of Lemmings to safety using the attributes provided.

It was originally made for the Amiga in 1991 before being ported to nearly every console and home computer imaginable, the game play style has reminders of its home computer roots with the game being designed originally to be played with a mouse (hence the movable cursor). The Lynx was however one of the last to receive a port along with the other handheld versions on the Game Boy and the Game Gear.

However, unlike the Game Gear and Game Boy ports, this version feels completely different, it has the same 120 levels as the other handheld ports but unlike them, accessing the selection for the all important Lemming attributes to assign is a lot easier as pressing Option 1 both pauses the game and brings you to the attributes menu (normally found on the bottom).

On the other portable versions, the menu is accessed by scrolling the cursor to the bottom which can be very difficult to read, especially on the poor quality screens of the time. This makes the Lynx version to me at least, much easier to pick up, play and also enjoy.

This is one of the Lynx’s later releases and is more scarse to find so be prepared to fork out a hefty price if you do find a copy. But for me its worth it to play what is in my opinion, the best portable version of Lemmings you can get.

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Overall, had the environment it entered been more different and more competition friendly, then I think the Lynx may well have stood a chance against the Game Boy.

However Atari had nowhere near as big a marketing budget as Nintendo or even SEGA had, or gaming lineup. That ultimately was the death of the system. Yes its great to have excellent portable versions of arcade classics but to succeed, one needs more than that to make a good dent in the market

Thanks for reading