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Atari Lynx vs Sega Game Gear


King_Salamon

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Lynx, hands down. No contest. Game Gear has more games but it's all stuff you can play elsewhere. I'd rather play Streets of Rage on my Genesis. Lynx has more unique titles that didn't appear on other systems. These games were perfectly suited for the Lynx. The NES Xybots prototype is a joke (finally tried the ROM recently, yecch! Yes, I know it was not the finished version but I didn't like where it was going). Xybots on Lynx is near arcade perfect. STUN Runner is MIA on pretty much everything except the Lynx. The Lynx also has the best (IMHO, of course) version of Klax. Toss is a little Road Blasters, California Games, Lemmings (again, one of the better ports) and some Warbirds and you've got an experience you can't get with a Game Gear.

 

The best thing about the Game Gear is its ability to play Master System games. Even though the screen is a blurry mess, that Master System converter is really the only saving grace for the system (again, IMHO). I picked my Game Gear up at a yard sale for a dollar and that's the only reason I still hang onto it.

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  • 1 month later...

For people who like game-music and sounds, and think that's an important aspect, there's one thing I would like to add. The Lynx has a MUCH better sounding sound chip than the game gear. It's not as good as the sid chip, but it sounds much more powerful and versatile than what the other earlier handheld's sound chips have to offer. I actually sold my game gear and Neo Geo pocket color 'cause I couldn't get the right feeling playing them as I was used to the much better sounding Lynx (and c64). In my opinion good chip music can really take a game to another dimension, and there's some really good tunes in many Lynx games.

 

Here's the Lynx soundtrack rip thread:

Edited by Turbo Laser Lynx
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Got my Lynx in the mail this week (yes I went with the Lynx) and will be giving Viking Child and Warbirds a go this weekend!

 

Now to get myself some more games! High on the list is Xenophobe, Qix and Robotron. Also, for the cheaper titles available, I'm going to be getting Xybots, Cyberball (only because I love the game) and other $3 games. lol

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I've owned a Sega GG, and own a couple of Lynxes now. IMHO the Lynx has the better library: it has a fantastic collection of excellent arcade conversions, a fair number of puzzlers, and some decent shooters like Blue Lightning.

 

Go with the system that gives you what you like to play. I suspect the GG is better for things like sports or RPGs, so if that's what you are into then the GG might be the better choice.

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  • 1 month later...

I've owned both a Lynx and GG myself, and the Lynx easily wins hands down. Yes, the GG has a much bigger library including a few gems, most of it is either "meh" or can be found better on other systems. The Lynx has a rather quirky library that really sets it apart from any other system. Plus, I will agree that the ratio of quality games on the Lynx is much higher than the GG, even though it has very few "AAA" games.

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  • 6 months later...

A bit late entry but now after one month of Game Gear gaming experience myself, the Lynx wins in many respects. I do not dislike the GG at all, the Sonic games are good, Columns is pretty good and a regular as are a few of the Disney jump and runs but all the other games go in and out pretty quickly, right now I can´t even remember many game names names without looking them up, which is radically different with the Lynx and its library. I find myself playing the GG about a third as much as the Atari handheld. As long as you circumvent the big danger of buying a GG that has the aforementioned age problems, no reason to say why not, the GG fits well in the hands and has some exciting and colourful looking action stuff; yet, the "personality" argument counts and nothing would motivate me to praise any GG game that much as I would rave about cartridges like Xenophobe, Checkered Flag, Rampage or Steel Talons.

Nevertheless, the GG is a good addition. Like the dot on the i as far as, for me, 1990ies handhelds are concerned. It has many colourful and beautiful jump and runs, which is good; however, as others have said, if you get a GG you won´t learn or see much new. The Lynx is more special.

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Hardware durability wise, Lynx.

 

All the the Game Gear out in the wild now are broken. It's due to the SMS mount that plague the system and it needs to be replace in order for the Game Gear Screen and sound to be functional. I wrote about my capacitor issue in my blog and just fixed it last year after starting this project 2-3 years ago due to anxiety. If you want to get a Game Gear and you're good at soldering circuitry stuff, I would just buy random Game Gear system that can power on off Ebay. Then do surgery on it, it's the only way to get a perfectly functional Game Gear.

 

http://members.optusnet.com.au/eviltim/ggrgb/ggrepair.html - has the info for it.

 

The Atari Lynx doesn't suffer from it capacitor drying out, 90% sure. Yet, I read that one component can render it broken.

 

---

 

Atari Lynx uses a 65SC02 series processor while the Game Gear uses z80 processor. Which is better, I don't know LOL.

 

The Atari Lynx has 64KB of RAM, which is a lot of a handheld system and it's worth it. Game Gear has 8KB of RAM and 16KB of VRAM.

 

Atari Lynx has a color pallete of 16. GameGear 32 colors. It can color change the pallete per scan line like Shadow of the Beast and that football game Cyberball. Game Gear has the ability to do this as well, Sonic Blast, Gunstar Heroes first stage. Only draw back is the little fuzzy dots that hovers around the region where the color has change(only on the GG screen not emulator.)

 

The Lynx has variable width text and the Game Gear can do so too. Only problem for the Game Gear, it has to take some room on the tile sheet to print the text into.

 

Parallax scrolling, Lynx wins. Game Gear can do this, but like most 8bit system they animate the tile to simulate this feature.

 

The Game Gear is restricted to a name table and tile sheet while the Lynx can seems to draw any size graphic anywhere on screen.

 

The feature that the Game Gear lacks is the ability to scale graphics.

 

---

 

It all come down to the games.

Edited by Kiwi
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The Lynx II IMO beats Game Gear on Ergonomics, it just doesn't feel as right in your hands as a Lynx does and the large D-pad is more comfortable to use as well since its more recessed and rounded. The only area I think the Game Gear wins is with its huge library of titles. I'm sure there are a ton of duds like with any popular system but its got a lot of gems as well. All the Sonic games are gold and Ecco the Dolphin is loads of fun. But I'm really loving my Lynx so far and have so far enjoyed most of the games I own for it. Even the ones I didn't think I would like such as Robotron. It looked at first to be a little to simple of a game. But I keep finding myself reaching for its box when I bring it down to play so I've definitely developed a taste for it. :P Even Hydra which at first to me was unplayable I'm starting to enjoy.

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  • 5 years later...

I like the game gear because you can play SMS games on it via adaptor i only hate the fragleroundish D-pad on it.

But the lynx does have arcade ports on it such as pac man,rygar,ninja gaiden etc,,,

I do like the lynx slightly better.

The lynx is more powerfull then the gamegear but it has it's bizzar cartride & link system .

Also the lynx was NOT 12 years long the most powerfull handheld before tha GBA(as some sites do claim) because there was the neogeo pocket color & wonderswam color, in 1999/2000,those systems have a 16bit cpu ,fast ram and and a bigger color count.

Oke both systems may lack sprite scaling and polygon rendering but it can be done via software.

If someone can prove me wrong and say that the lynx is more powerfull then both 16bit handhelds,prove it..

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re: useless D-pad. It is very easy to add a controller port and use Sega Master controller with this. It's especially useful when paired with mcWill's LCD mod with VGA output so you could play it like a console. (there's also unrelated RGB mod but it does not scale up GG video to full screen unfortunately)

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In the last 6 months I have started collecting both systems, have bought and recapped both handhelds and I prefer the Lynx as a collectable, it feels more iconic and quirky. The game gear does have better games though.

 

Both are cheap to collect, game gear probably more so but be aware, if you get a game gear that's not re-capped, your going to have to do it because they were produced with bad batch of caps and nearly all are failing.

 

One more thing I feel I need to throw my 2p in about, people mention the GG has a higher resolution screen, to me it just isn't as good, the Lynx screen always seems sharper with more readable text and better to play, everything I play on the GG just seems to be a bit blurry.

 

oh, im a Lynx mk1 owner, I never liked the looks of Lynx 2.

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I quite recently bought a GG with the McWill mod and an everdrive so I can play both GG and SMS games. I must say the mod screen is gorgeous and again a real 'retro ressurection'.

 

The GG is a fun console in most ways, I don't want to bash it at all, and there's a few really strong games, especially platformers (which is a genre I like a lot personally). I haven't checked it up but I would guess the SMS/GG hardware might have been designed with platformers as a main priority, those being a really important thing at that time. I do agree with Sauron though that there's quite a lot samey/meh games for it, but there's obviously quite a few strong ones as well, wonderboy 2 and 3 and the Disney platformers comes to mind, and a really good SMS port of Speedball 2 for european gamers!

 

Obviously I'm partial but I still like the Lynx more in almost every way. One thing is that most games move more smoothly in a nicer way on the Lynx (that graphics co processor must be doing something nice) and the Lynx also has parallax scrolling (which i love) in many games that other 8-bit consoles/computers only could dream of. Also as I mentioned earlier in this thread, the Lynx sound is more unique. Still the GG gets 9/10 points from me, but the Lynx gets 11/10 ;) Anyway retro-gaming is so subjective, It should really be the good feeling that matters instead of tech-specs. :)

Edited by Turbo Laser Lynx
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Two systems, two great consoles for that times.

Each one with strengths and weaknesses.

I don't like to put down one of them. As a retrogamer, I love both.

My friend Turbo Laser Lynx knows that my love is for the Game Gear,

but I don't want to say it's better because it's not.

There are some aspects in which it's superior to the Lynx and others in which it's inferior.

 

I like to repair both systems and looking to the hardware lasting, I've to say it's impossible

to find an original Game Gear 100% working due to leaking capacitors.

If there are still Game Gears working with original capacitors, they will not last for a long time anymore...and

I'm sure they have in any case capacitors which are leaking inside.

While Lynx are better looking this way. You can still find Lynx 100% working without any problems with the original components.

On the other side, if the capacitor fluid (or fluid of leaking batteries) had not ruined components...it's very probable that a Game Gear, capacitors replaced,

will revive.

While it's more probable for a broken Lynx to be irreparable (eg. fried components due to a broken zenher diode and so on).

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I was (still am) an Atari-Head. I had a Lynx and my younger brother had the Game Gear. He got it because he was familiar with Sega having owned a master system, and he just had to be different from his older bro. What put me off the GG was the fact that you could play MS games with an adapter. My brain told me that logically the GG must therefore be just a portable MS. There wasn't an Atari console equivalent to the Lynx but I was a massive ST gamer. Of course I didn't know until many years later the Lynx hadn't actually been designed by Atari (and the dev kit was Amiga based :D).

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Almost 7 years after I first posted in this thread... I no longer have the Lynx and Lynx II but still have several Game Gears with accessories, EverDrive, and over 150 game carts. I still like the Lynx, but I found myself playing it less and less over time and passed it along to someone who would appreciate it more.

 

Clearly the Game Gear suffers from cap problems. All of my Game Gears have had their caps replaced. A couple of them also have a LED mod, extending the battery life by many hours.

 

I enjoy playing a real Game Gear occasionally, but these days the old low contrast LCD screens are harder for me to look at for extended gaming sessions. I would love to upgrade one to a McWill screen one day, but for now I am very happy playing GG and Lynx emulated on a PSP or computer. Even though the PSP in no longer new or cutting edge, it emulates Game Gear very well and the games look great on the PSP screen.

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Just curious, did you have the cap problems after they had been replaced, or only before? I was thinking of getting a recapped GG and an Everdrive to go with it, but I have a low tolerance when it comes to unreliable or frustrating hardware. Stuff is going to occasionally break on these old handhelds and that is understandable, but I would rather pass if the system needs to be recapped every 1-2 years.

 

I recently got a Lynx and having them side by side to play would be interesting.

Almost 7 years after I first posted in this thread... I no longer have the Lynx and Lynx II but still have several Game Gears with accessories, EverDrive, and over 150 game carts. I still like the Lynx, but I found myself playing it less and less over time and passed it along to someone who would appreciate it more.

 

Clearly the Game Gear suffers from cap problems. All of my Game Gears have had their caps replaced. A couple of them also have a LED mod, extending the battery life by many hours.

 

I enjoy playing a real Game Gear occasionally, but these days the old low contrast LCD screens are harder for me to look at for extended gaming sessions. I would love to upgrade one to a McWill screen one day, but for now I am very happy playing GG and Lynx emulated on a PSP or computer. Even though the PSP in no longer new or cutting edge, it emulates Game Gear very well and the games look great on the PSP screen.

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Just curious, did you have the cap problems after they had been replaced, or only before? I was thinking of getting a recapped GG and an Everdrive to go with it, but I have a low tolerance when it comes to unreliable or frustrating hardware. Stuff is going to occasionally break on these old handhelds and that is understandable, but I would rather pass if the system needs to be recapped every 1-2 years.

 

I haven't had any problems in the several years since the original caps were replaced.

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Just curious, did you have the cap problems after they had been replaced, or only before? I was thinking of getting a recapped GG and an Everdrive to go with it, but I have a low tolerance when it comes to unreliable or frustrating hardware. Stuff is going to occasionally break on these old handhelds and that is understandable, but I would rather pass if the system needs to be recapped every 1-2 years.

 

I recently got a Lynx and having them side by side to play would be interesting.

 

Only the original capacitors have problems....

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