Atari Lynx handheld chat

[Blackjack]

Oddly enough, while I was combing through my computer room in a state of Christmas night insomnia, I stumbled onto my box full of Atari Lynx games. Then I went into a panic cause I couldn't find my old "phat" (the "original") Lynx. Thankfully I did turn it up.

I bought mine in 1990. I was at a Toys R Us to look at the NES games there. But there was this Atari Lynx in a glass display case. It was playing a rolling demo of the air combat game Blue Lightning (one of the "original" Lynx games developed by Epyx before it sold the system's and initial games' rights to Atari -- apparently that became quite the legal mess, and Atari had to settle some things later). There's a YouTube video of it (pixelicious though it may be):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxKi-hSTvVg

I just fell in love with it, and I guess back then I had this bad habit of buying new videogame systems when I was feeling a little blue, which is how I later ended up with a Turbografix-16.

In the mid to late 1990s I bought quite a few Lynx games from a company called BRE, and it seems like they still exist today:
http://store.bresoftware.com/atari_lynx.php

I'm actually thinking about trying to get some other games for it now.

Just thought I'd start a thread, see if there are any other Lynx owners out there.  I'll make a separate post listing the games I have. Maybe if there are other owners of it they can help me avoid choosing bad games -- I confess that while I have a large Lynx library, only a few are what I'd consider gems.

Although you can find YouTube videos of most of the Lynx games, I thought it might be fun to use my iPod Touch to capture some Lynx games footage and maybe share that too.

[Jarrodhk]

I miss my Lynx, got it when I was `12 or so.  Somewhere in the last few moves I've lost mine though... no idea where it is now.

[Blackjack]

Here's my list, no particular order, I may be forgetting something, I'll update it later.   Asterisks are my personal favorites.

*Robotron 2084
*Joust
Battlezone 2000
*Jimmy Connor's Tennis
Rampart
Rygar
Hydra
Turbo Sub
Electrocop
*Blue Lightning
Checkered Flag
Zarlor Mercenary
Super Missile Command & Asteroids
Batman Returns
Todd's Adventures in Slime World
Warbirds
Gates of Zendocon
California Games (this was the "pack in" title with the Lynx in 1990 -- not sure if I still have it)

I wish I had bought Klax, Awesome Golf, Lemmings, some others.

A lot of the games on my list sounded good on paper, but I found lacking in sound or fun factor. The Robotron and Joust arcade translations are quite wonderful, esp. in the sound department. Jimmy Connors Tennis has crisp voice sounds for the umpire, and is probably one of the best tennis titles I've played on a handheld (PSP has some good ones too).

otoh, I found the sound in some titles like Zencodon, Slime World and the Missile Command/Asteroids game sorely disappointing. The Lynx was certainly capable of terrific sound and digitized voices (Klax has some good voices apparently too), so I found it odd to run into so many titles with so-so sound effects or repetitive sound effects that became annoying.
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There are lots of Atari enthusiasts sites, and plenty of places online that you can still buy the game and both models of the system, fwiw.

There's a nice list of the games here, including some games released independently after Atari gave up on the system, and some oddities like the "rolling demo" of Blue Lightning (which I guess is what I saw in the display case at Toys'R'Us in 1990):
http://www.atariage.com/software_list.html?SystemID=LYNX

[CeeKay]

no Aliens vs Predator?  that game was the whole reason I wanted a Lynx when it came out.

[hitbyambulance]

i need to find mine - it's somewhere in my parent's basement. KLAX was pretty cool (and the only game that i know of which actually took advantage of the Lynx sound chip). Batman Returns was pretty horrible...

[Destructor]

A (long) while back, I tried to get every single Lynx game ever released onto store shelves. Who knows how close I got. Where is my Lynx...

Ahha! I own two machines (a Lynx 1 and a Lynx 2) along with 56 games. Great portable system for its time, and frankly blew away anything the old Gameboy could even think of dreaming.

[Blackjack]

no Aliens vs Predator?  that game was the whole reason I wanted a Lynx when it came out.

I think you got your systems confused, CeeKay; AvP was a system seller for a time on the Atari Jaguar full-size console, and I do still have that game and my Jaguar.   That's a whole separate thread.

I can say I was undergoing some extreme heartbreak around Valentine's Day 1996 and for some inexplicable reason the cheaper $199.99 Jaguar seemed like a better investment than the what seemed obscenely expensive Sony PlayStation ($299.99). Little did I know...   I think I bought my Jag at a Babbages in a mall, talk about nostalgia.

I didn't get a Gameboy until the GBA came out. But the Gameboy was cheaper, used its batteries frugally (a Lynx would chew 'em up) and was far more portable (is that a skateboard in your pants, an Atari Lynx in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?  ), and for whatever reason Atari never quite seemed to get its act together in terms of marketing and getting game licenses with mass appeal. They desperately needed a true "System Seller" for the Lynx (it needed its Super Mario, its Sonic the Hedgehog, its Halo, something everyone wanted or kids wanted, that would help drive sales) and they never quite came up with one though I remain very fond of much of the games in its library.

I do wish a Defender/Stargate had been among the Lynx arcade conversions, since it did such a good job with the other Williams classics (Joust and Robotron 2084).