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Could the Lynx have been a console?


zetastrike

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The Lynx did had some things that some of the consoles didn't have. For example, it had hardware assisted scaling, which the Genesis didn't have. Blue Lightning wouldn't have been possible in the same way. It also had 4096 colours, which was quite a bit more than the Genesis, though only 16 at once.

Ah, once again, something amazing that Atari thought of, but was either before their time, or didn't have the funds to get it out the door. Really when reading anything about Atari, you end up with the conclusion that the first bad decision was selling to Time Warner. After that it was just a string of bad decisions.

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A console Lynx would have needed higher resolution and that probably would not have been possible at the same speed without changing the whole architecture to allow for more graphics throughput.

 

True.

 

To answer the original poster's question, the Lynx was a great system for sure, but the 160x102 screen resolution would've looked hideous, compared to most other home video game consoles at the time (which were usually outputting 256x224, 320x192, or 320x224). The system did have some punch to its visuals, with a good color palette and excellent sprite handling abilities, but I don't know if that would have made up for the jarring difference in resolution.

 

As a portable system, the resolution drop was more tolerable, since you were looking at a physically smaller screen.

 

Many of the Lynx's best games were designed to simultaneously maximize the system's strengths and minimize its weaknesses. With a portable system, you could create multiplayer games that could connect two or more systems, and give each player a private screen with his own personal view of the action. This was the type of gaming experience that you generally didn't get on the Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, or Super NES.

 

With conversions, such as their poor Lynx version of Ms Pac-Man, the battle would have been even greater.

 

I disagree about the Lynx version of Ms. Pac-Man being a poor version of the game. It was very well done for a game released on a portable system in 1990. The graphics were decidedly low-res, but they got the job done. The game played very well, with good control and good pacing, and also offered a separate mode with a great number of additional mazes.

 

Sure, we have more "arcade-like" adaptations of Ms. Pac-Man on newer handhelds. The version in Namco Museum Battle Collection on PSP is practically arcade perfect. For its time, though, the Lynx adaptation was a worthwhile game. I still trot out the Lynx version occasionally.

 

Most arcade conversions on the Lynx turned out very well, thanks to the attention to quality and designers' intent on focusing on the system's strengths. Many arcade ports on the Lynx totally smoked their counterparts on the "big" home consoles of the day. Heck, a few of the arcade ports were better than the original arcade games, too!

 

The general high quality of software is one of the key reasons why Lynx is fondly remembered, even more than 27 years after the system was released. The hardware might have aged, but the games remain ageless.

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Novel idea. I don' see how a home console Lynx would work. It would have been ugly compared to Genesis SNES, and heck even Turbografx. Also small screen resolution is a no-go. All systems were designed around the timings and displayable scanlines on a CRT raster. Different systems had different width pixels but it would have needed more screen real estate. One thing I do praise the Lynx for which the Game Gear (portable SMS) and Game Boy (sprite engine built primarily on 8x8 or 16x16 sprites) got wrong, was home console or arcade ports to the Nintendo and Sega handhelds used full sized sprites onscreen, often resulting in games with less real estate. And seeing less of the game world gave you less time to react to enemies, etc.

 

With Lynx, the mini screen had sprites that scaled nicely in proportion to the entire screen. Arcade ports like Toki and Pacland were redrawn so that the character was proportional to the screen size. I believe it also got the only arcade port of Ninja Gaiden for home console. The NES trilogy were entirely different games.

 

Also with regards to home computers being popular in Europe, due to rampant disk piracy, many games were cheaply made and there was a lot of shovelware for the systems. Sure they had more CPU and RAM but they often lacked graphical and audio prowess. And I do beleive the Apple and MS-DOS business machines were the worst in terms of graphics. Before the soundblaster cards came out, DOS had to rely on PC Speaker, a single monotone 50% duty cycle sound format that was hardly good enough to do blips and beeps. Compare that to the fantastic FM sound in the SG-3000 (Japanese SMS), Pokey chips in the Atari 8-bit computers, or the NES synthesizer with two rectangles, a triangle, noise, and PCM.

 

Back to Lynx, it would have tanked hard against the Genesis, SNES, and Turbografx. As a handheld, it stood up well to the Game Gear in terms of graphical prowess. Funny how Game Boy won out with it's limey green monocromatic screen....... :grin:

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  • 2 weeks later...

I disagree about the Lynx version of Ms. Pac-Man being a poor version of the game. It was very well done for a game released on a portable system in 1990. The graphics were decidedly low-res, but they got the job done. The game played very well, with good control and good pacing, and also offered a separate mode with a great number of additional mazes.

 

Sure, we have more "arcade-like" adaptations of Ms. Pac-Man on newer handhelds. The version in Namco Museum Battle Collection on PSP is practically arcade perfect. For its time, though, the Lynx adaptation was a worthwhile game. I still trot out the Lynx version occasionally.

 

Most arcade conversions on the Lynx turned out very well, thanks to the attention to quality and designers' intent on focusing on the system's strengths. Many arcade ports on the Lynx totally smoked their counterparts on the "big" home consoles of the day. Heck, a few of the arcade ports were better than the original arcade games, too!

 

The general high quality of software is one of the key reasons why Lynx is fondly remembered, even more than 27 years after the system was released. The hardware might have aged, but the games remain ageless.

It did have a lot of mazes. I was disappointed with the choppiness of Ms Pac-Man. I didn't like single color monsters. It felt like a step back to the 2600 (No colorful, moving eyes). That was one of the things that really grabbed me as a child. I thought the monsters could "see" with those eyes. I watched the mindless VCS eyes, to the 5200 Pac eyes, to the eyes with white in 5200 Ms Pac. To go to just back holes reminded me of when I would make Pac-Man on my Vic-20. I would use inverted quotes as the monsters. lol. Kind of reminds me of Baby Pac-Man Pinball or the Astrocade Pac-Man. I was also upset that Ms Pac-Man didn't cut corners like the arcade.

 

However, You make a good point about the mazes, and it is nice that they fit the playfield on a single screen. I supposed there are pros and cons.

Most of all, you experienced it back in the day. I may be a little blinded by where we are now. So, if you were impressed back in the day, maybe I would have been too.

I always thought it would have been good if they'd done it like the original GameBoy Ms Pac-Man, but that would require scrolling. Maybe the lower resolution lent itself to one screen.

 

post-13491-0-99724700-1486178013_thumb.jpg post-13491-0-73665400-1486178047_thumb.jpg

 

post-13491-0-16491900-1486178083_thumb.jpg post-13491-0-53587000-1486178158_thumb.jpg

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The ghosts are multi colour in the Lynx version, the image you've used is one where Ms Pac-Man has just eaten a power pellet so she can eat them.

Rgds

BadPricey

I didn't mean to imply that the monsters are all the SAME color, I said they are single color, just like the VCS Ms Pac-Man.

I think of "multi-color" as referring to the sprites themselves. I see what you thought I meant though.

post-13491-0-20424500-1486343426_thumb.png post-13491-0-69629400-1486343582_thumb.png

 

Even my 5200 had multi colored monsters.

post-13491-0-77865900-1486343681_thumb.png

 

I can see that the Lynx monsters are limited on the number of pixels, due to fitting the entire playfield into the lower resolution screen, so I respect their decision in retrospect. Back in the say, I thought it was a hardware issue.

It just made a bad impression on me. Even if the Gameboy was B&W, multi-color sprites gave ME a feel of more accuracy,

 

As I mentioned, part of that is because I the monster's moving eyes were a BIG DEAL to me when I was very young. Back then, I found that pretty stunning. LOL.

Again, as long as some of you have fond memories, that gives the game value. It is just how my perception was at the time.

 

--D

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  • 5 years later...
On 2/3/2017 at 7:17 PM, darryl1970 said:

It did have a lot of mazes. I was disappointed with the choppiness of Ms Pac-Man. I didn't like single color monsters. It felt like a step back to the 2600 (No colorful, moving eyes). That was one of the things that really grabbed me as a child. I thought the monsters could "see" with those eyes. I watched the mindless VCS eyes, to the 5200 Pac eyes, to the eyes with white in 5200 Ms Pac. To go to just back holes reminded me of when I would make Pac-Man on my Vic-20. I would use inverted quotes as the monsters. lol. Kind of reminds me of Baby Pac-Man Pinball or the Astrocade Pac-Man. I was also upset that Ms Pac-Man didn't cut corners like the arcade.

 

However, You make a good point about the mazes, and it is nice that they fit the playfield on a single screen. I supposed there are pros and cons.

Most of all, you experienced it back in the day. I may be a little blinded by where we are now. So, if you were impressed back in the day, maybe I would have been too.

I always thought it would have been good if they'd done it like the original GameBoy Ms Pac-Man, but that would require scrolling. Maybe the lower resolution lent itself to one screen.

 

post-13491-0-99724700-1486178013_thumb.jpg post-13491-0-73665400-1486178047_thumb.jpg

 

post-13491-0-16491900-1486178083_thumb.jpg post-13491-0-53587000-1486178158_thumb.jpg

Necro bump.

 

These other Ms Pac mans are zoomed in allowing for greater detail. But why didn't they go for more accurate maze representation?

 

That's sort of dropping the ball.

 

But apparently those others have a zoomed out full maze view as well.  I would have liked to have seen that. 

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