The Atari Lynx

I spent this labor day playing through the Atari Lynx romset.  It was a strange and mostly unrewarding journey that at least got it out of my system.  The games are almost entirely developed Atari or atari affiliates.  The only thing that bucks that trend in my fresh memory was a port of Raiden that would have looked perfectly at home on the Wonderswan.  I'm pretty curious what the story behind it was.

Fun Fact: I've never held an actual Lynx.

Oh it also had a port of Ninja Gaiden, the arcade game.  Which if you've never played, is pretty awful.  And a handheld (HAH) version is also pretty awful.  There might have been a port of the 3rd NES game, but it wouldn't go past the title screen.  Neither would Shadow of the Beast which despite there being 5 different roms of, wouldn't launch.  I suppose it was for the best.

It says I managed to keep 40 "roms" around.  I suppose I should talk about some of those.  like Dracula, a game where Bram Stoker (sp?)  reads you Dracula and then you choose actions for the characters to take?

Fun Fact: Chai Cola is a thing you can buy in STORES.

Or the actually fairly good ports of Battlezone 2000 and Paperboy?  Basketbawl game where you are totally allowed to shiv the other player and then take it to the hole.  Lynx Casino is a fairly terrible casino games game, but your avatar for the casino has an amazing walking animation.  Pinball Jam I've never heard of, but reek of a port.  It features an Elvira table!  I'm not sure  I could say anything about Fat Bobby, except if you're going to play one Lynx gameicantevenfinishthatsentenceidon'tbelieveyoushouldplay any Lynx game.

Fun Fact: Gates of Zendocon has a nuts intro.

Scrapyard Dog has the saddest intro where you get gunned down so a dog in a trenchcoat can steal your dog.  Todd's Adventure in Slime World is about the importance of regular bathing.  Robotron 2084 and Super Asteroids and Missle Command are awesome graphical upgrades.  Xenophobe I know I've played before, but can't remember where.  Viking Child is looking into the face of awful game design.  Blue Lightning is a dog-fight simulator (as in with planes,) that's graphically impressive.  It was probably awful to try and play on an actual Lynx.  Warbirds had a full 3D world going for it's dog-fighting.

Fun Fact:Subway Artists are supposed to put 3 pieces of olives on your sandwhich.  If you ask for more, they are supposed to put an additional 3.  They seem to follow this policy more closely now.

This romset had tons of prototypes and homebrew.  Booster caught my interest as a triangle cutting through a teal blocks and producing tons of pixels.  knight.zip is a game where you move a knight on an empty chessboard.  Knightmare minidemo.zip had Arthur running around an empty 1st stage of Ghouls and Ghosts, but with pretty neat colors.  There was also a whole folder of 200 demo-scene things.  I didn't keep any of them, but the ones of note were a still frame flashing between 2 hideous color schemes. 

Fun Fact: the objective of Chip's Challenge for the ATARI LYNX is to prove that you are cool enough for the computer club

Road Blasters and Hydra I kept around because they made me think about Space Harrier.  Turbo Sub did to, but an equally impressive manner.  Bubble Trouble starts with a man shooting lasers at a bathtub, and has the player start as the man trapped in the bubble in something's intestines.  Dirty Larry: Renegade Cop lives up to the name until you start playing.  Gang members will stab you and shoot you. Zaku Prototype is not a mysterious gundam game, but a furry homebrew clone of Air Zonk.