Sega 16's impressions and reviews about Atari Lynx games

[bigladiesman]

The console E̶l̶i̶j̶a̶h̶ ̶W̶o̶o̶d̶ Tobey Maguire had to play in the bathroom. Man, was it huge for a portable. As the first 16-bit portable console it deserves recognition, and morover, it has plenty of good games.

[bigladiesman]

And I'll start with Blue Lightning. Some people think it's nothing but a demo for the console, but, boy, what a demo: a shameless yet effective clone of After Burner you could carry almost everywhere (on a backpack, that is). The scaling effects and the uses of colour are jaw-dropping for 1989, the explosions are nothing short of spectacular, and morover, I find to be quite an entertaining game. Sounds so-so, but it fits the part. Epyx started its machine (more than Atari's) with a huge bang.

[Sut]

For how powerful the Lynx is with the processor, colour and scaling effects I just cannot get by the low resolution, this thing is barely a step up from the MicroVision resolution wise lol.
So for me it is much easier to play the Game Gear than the Lynx.

[bigladiesman]

For how powerful the Lynx is with the processor, colour and scaling effects I just cannot get by the low resolution, this thing is barely a step up from the MicroVision resolution wise lol.
So for me it is much easier to play the Game Gear than the Lynx.

Yep, it was its Achilles heel and at the same time one of the things that made it unique.

[Team Andromeda]

I had a Lynx II and so wish I didn't sell it. I never had many games for it, but loved Dracula the Undead on it and also loved the scaling on California games

[bigladiesman]

I had a Lynx II and so wish I didn't sell it. I never had many games for it, but loved Dracula the Undead on it and also loved the scaling on California games

Dracula was a risky decision by the depelopers and Atari. If I'm not wrong it was a beautifully presented text adventure, a genre I like a lot but was quite out of fashion in the 90s (it got better). I heard it's considered a top-notch game on the Lynx.

[Team Andromeda]

Dracula was a risky decision by the depelopers and Atari. If I'm not wrong it was a beautifully presented text adventure, a genre I like a lot but was quite out of fashion in the 90s (it got better). I heard it's considered a top-notch game on the Lynx.

It played like a old school text adv game and looked and sounded amazing. Like a fool I sold it all for pennies years back

[bigladiesman]

Checkered Flag is, IMHO, one of the essential games on the Lynx. A game to go for fast 5-15 minute entertainment while commuting or on a rough night. For me it's Atari applying the sheer simplicity of a [by then] old school game to sophisticated 16-bit era aestethics: choose from 18 tracks, colour your car if you want, select if you want to ride solo or with adversaries and the number of laps. And then hit the road with those pretty, colourful graphics, good scaling effects, fluid movements and tight controls. Only the sound, like many Lynx games, leaves a bit to be desired. Nice arcade racing.

[redsox2013]

I always loved Checkered Flag. Lots of track variety, good control and nice sprite scaling - the cars even scale in the rear view mirror. I also fully agree with the assertion that Blue Lightning is more than just a tech demo. It has 10 long levels, with fighting through mountains and canyons, over flat land and at sea. You battle against enemy planes, tanks and ships - amazing variety to be dismissed as a tech demo. I always loved going high in the sky and just watching the clouds scale by.

[Team Andromeda]

I never played Checkered Flag, gutted now. To be honest while I loved the spec of the Lynx , its screen res made it so hard to play, even on a real system . Its the one area NEC GT got so right at the time

[axel]

I never played Checkered Flag, gutted now. To be honest while I loved the spec of the Lynx , its screen res made it so hard to play, even on a real system . Its the one area NEC GT got so right at the time

Wonder if it could be uprezzed in emulation, at least for the scalar games. Higan does this for Mode 7 in SNES games. Or at least overclock it to fix framerate issues. Here's what I'm talking about:

[bigladiesman]

Wonder if it could be uprezzed in emulation, at least for the scalar games. Higan does this for Mode 7 in SNES games. Or at least overclock it to fix framerate issues. Here's what I'm talking about:

I think this old AtariAge thread may address what you're referring to. Then again, I suck at tech… And our GG was something SO BRUTAL… I even keep my old one, that won't work anymore, just for the sake of it, even having another one.

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/21...colour-hi-res/

[bigladiesman]

I always loved Checkered Flag. Lots of track variety, good control and nice sprite scaling - the cars even scale in the rear view mirror. I also fully agree with the assertion that Blue Lightning is more than just a tech demo. It has 10 long levels, with fighting through mountains and canyons, over flat land and at sea. You battle against enemy planes, tanks and ships - amazing variety to be dismissed as a tech demo. I always loved going high in the sky and just watching the clouds scale by.

It makes me dizzy to think Epyx created it on 1987.

[axel]

I think this old AtariAge thread may address what you're referring to. Then again, I suck at tech… And our GG was something SO BRUTAL… I even keep my old one, that won't work anymore, just for the sake of it, even having another one.

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/21...colour-hi-res/

If I understand that thread correctly, they are referring to the fact that the Lynx LCD is actually 480x102 resolution, with three pixels red/green/blue making up one pixel in game. That's useful for displaying static images or making fonts more readable on a low res display. What I'm referring to is something more like this effect in SNES emulators:



It probably wouldn't work as well on the Lynx though since you're dealing with bitmaps and not planes.

For overclocking, I saw this article awhile back: https://atarigamer.com/articles/revi...console-repair

Recently, I've been playing around with some other mods with another Lynx I have. I've done a 24Mhz CPU overclock mod which increased the Lynx speed to 150% its usual, and meant that some games (like Viking Child) could actually be enjoyed! I'm planning to turn this into a switchable overclock mod so I can switch back to the standard 16Mhz CPU speed.

I don't know how realistic this is for the rest of the Lynx library though.

[Melf]

I have a Lynx II and 59 complete games. I love the system! It has a unique charm to it, and it's great that games continue to be released for it.