- Joined
- Apr 10, 2019
- Posts
- 1,134
So the lynx didn't make a huge dent in the US gaming market... but people in the know understand that it was basically the NeoGeo AES of handheld gaming. Before you close the window in disgust, let me present the following points:
-it was circa 1989 hardware, like the AES
-it came from the same late 80s design school as the AES, where its a physically big machine made out of dark plastic, like a high end boombox or vcr
-it was more expensive than the competition, like the AES
-compared to the gameboy and gamegear, it was the plush option, with its color backlit screen, hardware based options to flip the screen display and controls for left handed users and graphics capabilities (described more below), this is akin to the AES being the plush option to regular systems such as snes/genesis
-the overwhelming majority of its library consisted of atari arcade games, akin to how the AES library was SNK arcade games
-it was a technological wonder compared to its competitors. It easily trumped the competition in terms of its graphics/hardware capabilities, for instance, it had a rudimentary gpu that could scale sprites in realtime, which was used to excellent effect in driving and flying games such as Blue Lightning, something we didn't really see in any popular home consoles of the time let alone handhelds. There were other notable accomplishments as well, for instance Todd's Adventures in Slime World was a platformer that could be network linked up to 8 players, I'm not sure another similar 8 player platformer game has ever come out. Similarly, Zarlor Mercenary was a Raiden style shmup that could be linked and played as a 4 player simultaneous shmup, it was the only shmup that could do 4 player simultaneous multiplayer until Gigawing 2 was released on the dreamcast about 10 years later in 2001.
I'm not a completionist collector and over time I've decided to let some things go, but I'm pleased to still have my atari lynx and many of the games I enjoyed on that platform. I know this isn't atariage, but does anyone else here mess with the lynx?
-it was circa 1989 hardware, like the AES
-it came from the same late 80s design school as the AES, where its a physically big machine made out of dark plastic, like a high end boombox or vcr
-it was more expensive than the competition, like the AES
-compared to the gameboy and gamegear, it was the plush option, with its color backlit screen, hardware based options to flip the screen display and controls for left handed users and graphics capabilities (described more below), this is akin to the AES being the plush option to regular systems such as snes/genesis
-the overwhelming majority of its library consisted of atari arcade games, akin to how the AES library was SNK arcade games
-it was a technological wonder compared to its competitors. It easily trumped the competition in terms of its graphics/hardware capabilities, for instance, it had a rudimentary gpu that could scale sprites in realtime, which was used to excellent effect in driving and flying games such as Blue Lightning, something we didn't really see in any popular home consoles of the time let alone handhelds. There were other notable accomplishments as well, for instance Todd's Adventures in Slime World was a platformer that could be network linked up to 8 players, I'm not sure another similar 8 player platformer game has ever come out. Similarly, Zarlor Mercenary was a Raiden style shmup that could be linked and played as a 4 player simultaneous shmup, it was the only shmup that could do 4 player simultaneous multiplayer until Gigawing 2 was released on the dreamcast about 10 years later in 2001.
I'm not a completionist collector and over time I've decided to let some things go, but I'm pleased to still have my atari lynx and many of the games I enjoyed on that platform. I know this isn't atariage, but does anyone else here mess with the lynx?