Atari Gamer articles

[Ninjabba]

You should draw out the Wyvern Tales map

 

I've started mapping it out for a banner for the mailing list and noticed how much time it took but I'm planning to make a nice looking full overworld map at some point

Nice list though! Mine looks completely different

Edited January 28, 2019 by Ninjabba

[Igor]

Looking forward to the full map! If I had to make a top X list, it would look very different indeed too. I need to write up a top 5 homebrew games soon!

[Igor]

Sometimes you open a brand new Lynx game and get that game, sometimes you open it and get a little surprise inside! https://atarigamer.com/articles/a-french-surprise--unboxing-a-brand-new-copy-of-apb-for-atari-lynx

 

[Fadest]

I guess you can say thanks you Mr Allgood !

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toubon_Law

[LynxHandyCaster]

Sometimes you open a brand new Lynx game and get that game, sometimes you open it and get a little surprise inside! https://atarigamer.com/articles/a-french-surprise--unboxing-a-brand-new-copy-of-apb-for-atari-lynx

 

Screen Shot 2019-02-04 at 20.43.26.png

 

When I bought this game NIB (sealed) in March of 2017 I discovered that there were two posters inside the carton as well. But I neglected to check to see if one of them was in a different language. I'll check when I get home after work today.

[LordKraken]

The reason for that is that french law required the product to be in french or to have at least some instructions in french. I guess today having the product in french is mandatory, back then it was probably ok to just have the manual.

 

But to be totally honest, back in the days, the localization was probably done by some random guys ("oh well ask the new intern, that will do it" ), so we got the worst text and voice acting for decades

[Fadest]

 

But to be totally honest, back in the days, the localization was probably done by some random guys ("oh well ask the new intern, that will do it" ), so we got the worst text and voice acting for decades

 

This is why we translate our french games in crappy english, just because you guys need to know what we suffered for years with stupid translations in french

[+karri]

Besides translating anything computer related to french is a nightmare. It takes twice the space to express anything in french compared to any other language. I had to translate lots of menus and popups to french for Sun Microsystem graphic workstations. So if you had problems in the 80's you know whom to blame.

 

PS. I only studied french for one semester. Enough to get my key from the reception and order food.

Edited February 4, 2019 by karri

[Lost Dragon]

Just for the interests of your sites Databases..

 

You probably know better than to trust everything printed in the Lynx game manuals, as they sometimes contain mistakes?

 

Case in point,Stun Runner, over to someone who knows his stuff

 

 

"Just thought I'd point out that we here at Atari Games Corp. are not the dweebs that the Atari Corp. (different company) marketing types who wrote the copy for the poster/instructions are.

 

S.T.U.N.actually stands for Speed Tunnel Underground Network not what is indicated otherwise . In fact,

the original meaning of the name was Spread Tunnel Underground Network,

which had to do with the original theme of the game which ended up

changing over the course of development and testing (whew! How is that for a classic case of run-on sentence?). The source code still refers to each level as a "spread".

 

But in any event, I would think that even a Marketing nerd could see that Sub-Terranean Underground is redundant(but then I guess that Marketing nerd and Marketing dweeb are redundant also...).

 

- Ed Rotberg -

- Game Designer/Programmer of S.T.U.N. Runner -

Edited February 9, 2019 by Lost Dragon

[Igor]

Yep, there are a few notable mistakes on manuals and boxes. I think TOKI has a miss-print for the developer company and Desert Strike has spelling mistakes on the back of the manual. I'm sure I've come across a few more too.

[Igor]

I've started coding for the Lynx recently using my Mac and it wasn't as easy as it would be on Windows, so here are some steps to get started. Who's else is making new Lynx games?

https://atarigamer.com/articles/setting-up-development-tools-for-atari-lynx-programming-on-macos

 

[LynxHandyCaster]

 

When I bought this game NIB (sealed) in March of 2017 I discovered that there were two posters inside the carton as well. But I neglected to check to see if one of them was in a different language. I'll check when I get home after work today.

 

Yeah, I checked my copy...French!

[Igor]

So we've had a chat with Fabien, the developer of Captain Harlynx. The game looks amazing, can't wait for it to be released! Check out the article here - https://atarigamer.com/articles/fabien-marlier-on-his-upcoming-space-shooter-for-atari-lynx---captain-harlynx

 

[agradeneu]

Looks like a very promising demo. Still a long way to go to be a full game though.

[+davidcalgary29]

"Many poorly made games"?!! I feel that I need to breathe into a paper bag. Then again, maybe he was locked in a closet with his Lynx and Hyperdrome for two weeks...

 

His game does look good, though. I have a feeling that I'm going to secretly rename it Firefly.

[Igor]

I think he's right though, there are some pretty bad Lynx games out there. I think the point really was that there were so many very good games so the potential of the console was up there.

[Lost Dragon]

Regarding:

 

"I found several very good games like Shadow of the Beast, Slime World, S.T.U.N. Runner, and Zaku, but also many poorly made games. I was surprised by the big differences of quality between the good and bad games. Since this is a 16-bit console, it should have shined compared to other handhelds of the era - so, how was it possible to develop such bad games?"

 

 

I read it that he was dissapointed that a lot of Lynx games sadly fell short in key areas and could of been so much more..

 

Over sensitive controls on Hard Driving..

 

Choppy Animation, poor sound FX, missing weapons and levels on Double Dragon.

 

No prisoner confession sequence on APB..

 

Viking Child having in game music on the Game Boy version..but not the Lynx..

[+davidcalgary29]

Regarding:

 

"I found several very good games like Shadow of the Beast, Slime World, S.T.U.N. Runner, and Zaku, but also many poorly made games. I was surprised by the big differences of quality between the good and bad games. Since this is a 16-bit console, it should have shined compared to other handhelds of the era - so, how was it possible to develop such bad games?"

 

 

I read it that he was dissapointed that a lot of Lynx games sadly fell short in key areas and could of been so much more..

 

Over sensitive controls on Hard Driving..

 

Choppy Animation, poor sound FX, missing weapons and levels on Double Dragon.

 

No prisoner confession sequence on APB..

 

Viking Child having in game music on the Game Boy version..but not the Lynx..

 

Eh, still a massive overstatement . There are five or so true stinkers in the Lynx library, but aside from those I don't see a basis for that claim, unless we're talking about sloppy coding, poor execution (Kung Food) or maybe if we include some of the less successful homebrews. I can appreciate criticism that certain games didn't fully utilize the Lynx architecture, but it's more difficult to agree with generalizations without specific examples.

 

And the Lynx didn't shine in comparison with other portables? I've never read any criticism from anyone that its ports simply weren't competitive.

[Igor]

Either way it's great to see that this inspired a new developer and a new game for the console. There's nothing quite like Captain Harlynx in the game library for the Lynx at the moment and I'm really looking forward to playing it.

[Lost Dragon]

Without knowing him as it were, i don't want to read too much into his comment and indeed it would of been more helpful to the reader if he had given a few examples of the poorly made games in his opinion.

 

But to myself he's simply stating not all development teams , be they commercial or homebrew, fully utilised the potential of the Lynx and that annoyed/dissapointed him.

 

 

When your looking at conversions to the Lynx for example, you have to factor in things like cartridge space..Ninja Gaiden is another prime example of a stunning title that just falls short of perfection. .missing the intro and 1 level from the coin op, maybe there just was not enough room for them to be included? ...and the people involved in the conversions and sources used.

 

 

I've always felt The Kremlin did a better job converting Desert Strike to the Game Gear than Telegames did to the Lynx, but i have chatted at length to the coder of the G.G version and know it was more than just a paid for project, he wanted to make it something really special.

 

 

Telegames also messed up Super Off Road on Lynx:choppy animation, poor collision detection and controls.

 

The Game Gear version simply is a better conversion.

 

California Games has less events than the Commodore 64 version.

 

And these are games running on 8 bit hardware..

 

On the flipside:

Lemmings on Lynx was clearly a labour of love and coder would of loved to of brought the sequel to Lynx but sadly there just wasn't a viable market for it.

 

Stun Runner shames the ST, Amiga and PC versions.

 

SOTB on Lynx kicks the ST version into the long grass..

 

Roadblasters and Pac-Land converted better to Lynx than Amiga and ST..

 

Blue Lightning is far superior to Argonaut's official conversion of Afterburner to the ST and Amiga.

 

Slimeworld is so much better on Lynx than Megadrive as is Toki.

 

Pitfighter (ok, dire game but it uses the hardware well), better than SNES version.

 

 

I think he's just saying the Lynx was clearly capable of holding it's own as so many titles showcased , it was just such a bitter pill to swallow when you saw titles that didn't fully deliver and weaker hardware had more time spent on it.

 

 

I could be very wrong here, it's just my interpretation of what he's saying.

Edited February 21, 2019 by Lost Dragon

[Fadest]

From my understanding, I guess that discovering the Lynx 20 years after the death of Game Gear and Lynx, he expected the same kind of gap between Lynx and Game Gear than between Megadrive ans Master System for example.

And the Lynx, even if marketed as 16 bits system, is not a full 16 bits and maybe has never been exploited at its full potential.

This is more a deception because expectations were high...

[agradeneu]

Many Lynx games appear a bit underdeveloped., fallin short of their potential. I lately bought a Game Gear to see what it is all about and I think the difference is bigger than I expected. Lynx has a quite better screen and much better power consumption. The GG just lasts like 1-2 hours with Duracells which caught me by surprise. I fully understand why kids preferred the GG and its library back in the day - Sonic and all the big IPs the Lynx lacked - but the Lynx as a niche system was more popular among matured gamers (Like a portable ST/Amiga) and that probably is why it is much more popular among retro gamers (usually in their 30s/40s) today.

[newtmonkey]

I only had a Game Boy when I was a kid, as I could afford neither a Game Gear nor Lynx.

 

I recently got both, and while I was very disappointed with the Game Gear (the screen is HORRIBLE even with all caps replaced; it's not so much the low refresh, but the composite quality video that's the problem), I was very pleasantly surprised with the Lynx II.

 

That's just talking about the hardware; if we include the game libraries, I think the Lynx has a much higher ratio of playable and enjoyable games. The Game Gear library is plagued with sub-par Megadrive ports (mostly platformers) that are extremely ill-suited to the stock GG screen. On top of that, the system suffered the same fate as the Game Boy around this time, with piles and piles of licensed garbage.

 

I find the smaller Lynx library to have a much higher ratio of games that are well-suited to the hardware. There are some real stinkers in there for sure, but I've been very surprised at the overall quality of the library (even if corners indeed needed to be cut due to memory or whatever).

[agradeneu]

I only had a Game Boy when I was a kid, as I could afford neither a Game Gear nor Lynx.

 

I recently got both, and while I was very disappointed with the Game Gear (the screen is HORRIBLE even with all caps replaced; it's not so much the low refresh, but the composite quality video that's the problem), I was very pleasantly surprised with the Lynx II.

 

That's just talking about the hardware; if we include the game libraries, I think the Lynx has a much higher ratio of playable and enjoyable games. The Game Gear library is plagued with sub-par Megadrive ports (mostly platformers) that are extremely ill-suited to the stock GG screen. On top of that, the system suffered the same fate as the Game Boy around this time, with piles and piles of licensed garbage.

 

I find the smaller Lynx library to have a much higher ratio of games that are well-suited to the hardware. There are some real stinkers in there for sure, but I've been very surprised at the overall quality of the library (even if corners indeed needed to be cut due to memory or whatever).

Yeah Sonic 2 on the GG is hard to enjoy really- you can't tell what's coming, due the very small playfield and the superfast scrolling. It simply does not work as well as the versions on MD and Master System. I found Scrapyard Dog on the Lynx much more playable, though the gfx sometimes look like primary school paintings.

[+davidcalgary29]

Yeah Sonic 2 on the GG is hard to enjoy really- you can't tell what's coming, due the very small playfield and the superfast scrolling. It simply does not work as well as the versions on MD and Master System. I found Scrapyard Dog on the Lynx much more playable, though the gfx sometimes look like primary school paintings.

 

All part of the game's charm. It's great having a platformer that doesn't have a spacey/sci-fi theme.