I could not find a dedicated Lynx thread (sorry if it's there), so thought i'd start 1, looking at the UK Press side of things:
Thank You. I'm trying to get material up for those new to the system and familar with it. Plus covering the less talked about aspects,,ie Atari working with the RSPCA as a promo.tool..you never hear that mentioned. More Lynx coverage would be welcomed then?
Fond memories of playing Chips Challenge in my German class and my German teacher freaking out saying 'who's got the radio, who's got the radio?' Thanks for those scans, seem to remember some of those pages from ST mags I read back in the day.
I sadly had to stop the process of having my old games magazines Atari coverage scanned and preserved..a few years ago as I was paying money on p+p, plus for my friend Mort's time to have material scanned and I found out the mag scan DVD's I had paid £5 for each..plus my own,physical scrap book clippings from magazines..were being copied and passed off as thier own finds by a certain individual on a Retro forum I used to frequent.. C+VG's Jaguar AVP review, Mortal Kombat III news story etc and Gamesmastet magazines preview of Freelancer 2120 on Jaguar CD (screens now known to be taken from PC version).. Appeared online.. I knew they were mine by each crease and ripped area ) So I sadly never had a lot of my collection digitally preserved. I had planned a lot more from C+VG, plus Game Zone magazine.. But the selfish actions of the individual spoiled that for the greater community...
Anywho, back to the discussion.. Atari Entertainment magazine made some bold claims in it's time.. Atari USA sat on 100,000 unsold Lynx units when the Jaguar was launched... The main UK Lynx distributor only ordered 12 copies of Hand Made Software's Dracula on Lynx.. Game went onto sell close to 10,000 copies in UK alone... I'm always wary of SUGGESTED sales figures being put across as factual.. I've been labelled a troll on Wikipedia for pointing out the claimed 3 Million Lynx machines sold, is pure speculation by Ex-Atari UK's Darryl Still..going along with a figure put to him.. I'm not sorry to question that figure as unless it can be independently verified.. It is meaningless. You look through the press coverage up in this thread already and those scans yet to come.. Atari being very vague with actual sales figures..claiming X amount sold over period Y.. They plan to sell a further 1 Million consoles by... Where are the specific, independently verified figures?
Also as an Ex-Lynx (Mk1 and Mk II) owner, i'd like to add a few thought's of my own to the review scans i've posted so far, as there's often a lot of talk about the superb Arcade conversions to Lynx, so here are a few key points of my own, for those of you new to the Lynx: Disclaimer:these are my own personal views but i will be pointing out differences, what works/what doesn't... APB-Is bloody great fun, i owned it at the time on C64, Atari ST and Lynx, the only flaws with the Lynx version? small screen restricts your view of upcoming hazzards etc, but the biggest issue:It's LACKING the Prisoner Confession stage , so it'll always be behind the ST version in my eyes, based on this alone. Ninja Gaiden-Far better than the chronic C64 port i bought, but lacks the coin-op's intro (no big deal), Traffic stage (shame) and is SP only. Pac-Land, C64 version was good, ST/Amiga version awful, Lynx version is superb, second only to the PC Engine version. Hard Drivin-Sorry, but no, it simply doesn't work on Lynx.Frame rate is too slow, controls far too over sensitive and it looses far too much on the small screen.Plus it lacks the tracks of even GB Race Drivin so boredom soon sets in. Steel Talons-Sorry but for me, frame rate kills it. Robotron:Technically superb, but your not going to replicate the dual stick controls with the Lynx set up Double Dragon-If your going to have a zoomed in view, to replicate feel of coin op, give your sprites the animation frames needed, plus it's Telegames so sound is awful, it lacks moves, weapons etc. Roadblasters:after buying on C64 (OMG, Dire!) then ST..dissapointing, at last an amazing conversion, just pipped to the post by the Sega Mega Drive version... Raiden:No in-game music, only 4 levels compared to Jaguar, so if you want a version on Atari, Jaguar a better choice. Super Off Road..again, bit too zoomed in, frame rate is..choppy, it works far better as a comlynx game, gets boring pretty quickly in SP mode. Pitfighter:Yes it has proper hardware sprite scaling, but it's...messy..the cleaned up visuals of the Sega MD version seemed to work better. Ok now onto conversions from Home Micro/Console to Lynx: Shadow Of The Beast is simply gorgeous, far better than the ST version, but it lacks a save game system and the flying section from the Amiga version. Lemmings again, technically you cannot fault it, your never going to get the precision a mouse gives and frantic nature of ST/Amiga version IS lost as you have to pause the game to bring up the icons. Desert Strike...again fantastic, but it's Telegames so sound is poor and it oddly lacks the ground detail the 8 bit Sega version had, given power of Lynx i expected a bit more. Viking Child:Cut down from ST/Amiga version, no in-game music, yet oddly the 8bit GB version does have music (and rather splendid it is as well)
Including these as when NEC's Portable PC Engine appeared on the scene, the chronic lack of software for the Lynx was very much brought to the fore once again.Plus it was facing some stiff competion on a technical level, Sega's Game Gear had already offered more colours on screen as standard (yes, Lynx can display more than 16 with clever coding, but it eats into CPU time, but awesome Golf used 40 odd? on it's static title screen, think Lemmings 2 player split screen uses different colours) and higher resolution, but still an 8 bit system, couldn't hope to replicate the Lynx sprite handling in software..
Ok, i've put the Special reserve advert up, along with the Telegames advert for a good reason. Basically, it's often claimed Atari still had a strong market presence when the Jaguar launched ST was still strong here in UK (utter, utter rubbish, as a 520STFM owner games dried up long before) and Lynx was still doing well..cobblers! Special Reserve DROPPED the Lynx as did key high street stores in London, i was left looking to the indie chains who did mail order to buy Lynx games. If you contacted Special Reserve or any store of that size and asked about new Telegames releases and other titles Atari had promised would be out, they simply scoffed openly, saying we will believe that when we see it, Atari have promised us so much, delivered so little in the past, we cannot risk upsetting customers who put money down or pre-orders or get tired of waiting for games that never arrive.
