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Perpetual Lynx Review Thread


Sauron

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Finally was able to watch it today, even baby watched it for 10 mins before he lost interest (4 month old). I really like the dorky presenter guy at the start, nice voice too. Still love that brutal approach to your reviews, so keep that up. I don't think you needed to go into as much detail about talking about "homebrew", it is what it is, just keep up the good work on it. I think I'll start linking these videos to each of game database entries that you do reviews for.

 

Would you be interested in doing reviews for the next game jam I run?

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On 3/23/2021 at 6:58 AM, Igor said:

Finally was able to watch it today, even baby watched it for 10 mins before he lost interest (4 month old). I really like the dorky presenter guy at the start, nice voice too. Still love that brutal approach to your reviews, so keep that up. I don't think you needed to go into as much detail about talking about "homebrew", it is what it is, just keep up the good work on it. I think I'll start linking these videos to each of game database entries that you do reviews for.

 

Would you be interested in doing reviews for the next game jam I run?

Definitely, assuming i have the time.  I love being a part of the community even in my dorky, stupid way.  But i also have a fear of offending people if i dont like the game, or it feels unfinished, or whatever.  I believe in being honest, but i dont want to trash anyone's baby!

 

The theme of the dorky presenter and the obsession with defining homebrew was an honest response to fair criticism/feedback some of you gave me after the others.  And i deserved it.  I was conflating terms and not appreciating the nuance.  Learned a lot from that, actually.

 

I want to continue to do funny/weird videos as time allows.  It's partly an excuse for me to experiment with video techniques.  Message me if you want help with things and if time allows, i'll be glad to.

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  • 4 months later...

Since I have been putting misc Jaguar press up and was disscussing the subject of Lynx reviews with Frank Gasking of GTW some weeks ago, he's revised the latest edition of the GTW book to reflect fact Lynx Hard Drivin recieved mixed reviews... 

 

 

Thought i would try a little experiment, probably die on it's arse, but here goes. 

 

 

I've not owned a Lynx in years and unfair to use emulation to give my current views, but here are a sample of reviews that caught my eye and why they stood out. 

 

I've never thought SOTB really worked as an actual handheld title, ignore the technical achievements and missing flying sequence etc, no password system and ease of completion if you know what your doing, made this a hard one to score objectively. 

 

Viking Child i have always thought more could of been done with it. The GB version has in-game music, Lynx has none, game itself felt cut down from the ST version. 

 

Never been a fan of Hard Drivin or Steel Talons on any home system, nor Paperboy. 

 

H. D and Paperboy lost an awful lot taken out of their custom arcade cabinets and Lynx H. D has terrible issues with it's controls. 

 

Steel Talons frame rate was simply too slow, better than the Genesis conversion, but still not something for myself on the home systems. 

 

Reviewers a little harsh on Rygar and Joust.. 

 

Whilst I disagree with Retrogamer awarding Kung Food a Retroshamer award, it wasn't worthy of the higher end scores either.. 

 

Not sure if Blue Lightning went under the working title here, thought i would put scan up. 

 

Bill And Ted's, one of the higher European scores i have seen for it, found it a mediocre title myself. 

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I agree with most of those scores except Paperboy, Rygar, and Joust, which are laughable. I think one of the American gaming mags gave Joust a terrible score too because it was old, full stop. Doesn’t matter it was the best home port to that point. (Hilariously low score for Solar Jetman too. It has issues but it isn’t THAT bad.)

 

Okay, whoever rated Kung Food 90% must have just watched a highlight reel and not actually played it.

 

Any adventure game can be completed pretty quickly once you know how to do it, so I don’t consider that a knock against Shadow of the Beast. I wish it had a password system, but like you say, it gets much faster as you learn. If you get a little further every time you can make progress in comparatively short play sessions. It’s a real accomplishment. Comparing it to the Master System port, I think it plays and looks better. (Although the Lynx version has some of the system’s best music, the SMS version definitely sounds better, masterful work there and better sound hardware.)

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1 hour ago, jgkspsx said:

I agree with most of those scores except Paperboy, Rygar, and Joust, which are laughable. I think one of the American gaming mags gave Joust a terrible score too because it was old, full stop. Doesn’t matter it was the best home port to that point. (Hilariously low score for Solar Jetman too. It has issues but it isn’t THAT bad.)

 

Okay, whoever rated Kung Food 90% must have just watched a highlight reel and not actually played it.

 

Any adventure game can be completed pretty quickly once you know how to do it, so I don’t consider that a knock against Shadow of the Beast. I wish it had a password system, but like you say, it gets much faster as you learn. If you get a little further every time you can make progress in comparatively short play sessions. It’s a real accomplishment. Comparing it to the Master System port, I think it plays and looks better. (Although the Lynx version has some of the system’s best music, the SMS version definitely sounds better, masterful work there and better sound hardware.)

Used to see the UK Press pull that trick with old arcade games converted to new, flagship console hardware, saying this wasn't what we wanted on the new system.. speak for yourselves, i had been waiting years for such a decent conversion. 

 

 

With Joust, i had loved it on the 2600 and ST, had no issues with it being on the Lynx. 

 

 

Kung Food was never going to set the world alight, collusion detection alone needed tightening up, but yep very bizzare score there. 

 

 

SOTB for myself has always been a case of style over substance, from the moment it landed on the Amiga. 

 

Technically the Lynx version is only pipped to the post by the PC Engine version and i appreciate efforts were made to enhance the gameplay, just as they were on the Master System version. 

 

I find Dracula to be in a similar place, an amazing game, sadly butchered in length by Atari, but not something that felt at home on the Lynx or any handheld. 

 

 

With Paperboy, the Lynx got a superb conversion, only beaten by the Mega Drive conversion and a nod must go to the Master System version, but taken out of it's home in the Arcades, i felt it lost an awful lot of it's impact. 

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Another selection. 

 

That's the highest score i have ever seen for Hard Drivin and I have to question if they ever played it. 

 

Very harsh on Checkered Flag.. 

 

Robotron I can appreciate really needs dual sticks and was always going to suffer control wise when put onto the Lynx, but still... 

 

 

APB and Ninha Gaiden, hmmn, both missing content (Prisoner confession sequence on former, intro and a level on the latter, but a little harsh) loved both myself. 

 

Xybots I had on ST, then Lynx, it's.. OK, too repetitive for my tastes for long term play. 

 

Hydra.. Utter dog, why Atari put this out on Lynx when we had the superb Roadblasters, I just don't know, the coin-op was mediocre to start with. 

 

 

Loved War Birds, favorite WW1 handheld title till GBA Wings. 

 

Dirty Larry, bored me senseless at the time and this after they cut the most boring level from final version. 

 

 

Can't really comment on Scrapyard Dog, it's supposedly a different, better game than the 7800 one? 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

Another selection. 

 

That's the highest score i have ever seen for Hard Drivin and I have to question if they ever played it. 

The 98% for interest is probably a copy/paste from another test/game that has not been changed, because it does not fit with the wording in the review...

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14 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

“Interet” isn’t an overall score, is it? It’s just how interesting the concept was, right?

I was hoping someone familair with the magazine could tell me. 

 

It seems to be a European version of Mean Machines with as Fadest pointed out, a lot of content copy and pasted from the UK magazine and then the scoring system adapted for their specific format. 

 

But if it's just interest, where's the actual review score? 

 

 

I grew up in an area where people wouldn't even read the review, just go straight for score awarded and base purchase on that. 

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It's coming from Consoles+ n°5, they also had a Viking Child test in same issue.

Had a quick look but did not find another game with same interest note/comment. But they gave Hard Drivin Megadrive/Genesis a worse score in previous issue.

 

You can find all their issue here :

Le site des anciennes revues informatiques - www.abandonware-magazines.org

 

Also, about french magazine from that era that made some Lynx tests :

 

Generation 4

 

Joypad gave an overall score of 60% to Hard Drivin (other games were tested of course) Joypad

 

Player One

 

And probably other (Tilt ? but ther were focused on computers also)

 

I do not have time to check every magazine, some of them clearly tell in the summary which games are tested on which console, some don't.

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31 minutes ago, Fadest said:

It's coming from Consoles+ n°5, they also had a Viking Child test in same issue.

Had a quick look but did not find another game with same interest note/comment. But they gave Hard Drivin Megadrive/Genesis a worse score in previous issue.

 

You can find all their issue here :

Le site des anciennes revues informatiques - www.abandonware-magazines.org

 

Also, about french magazine from that era that made some Lynx tests :

 

Generation 4

 

Joypad gave an overall score of 60% to Hard Drivin (other games were tested of course) Joypad

 

Player One

 

And probably other (Tilt ? but ther were focused on computers also)

 

I do not have time to check every magazine, some of them clearly tell in the summary which games are tested on which console, some don't.

I only started looking at European Games Press, after that ridiculous 2.5 Million Jaguar Pre-orders claim was doing the rounds as FACT. 

 

I wanted to try and guage just how much build up there was for the system and how much coverage Atari systems recieved, compared to Sega and Nintendo. 

 

The Lynx fared well, i was surprised to see so much 2600 stuff abd XEGS content at times, but the Jaguar mainly had slim pickings

 

I found their reviewing systems hard to follow, not speaking the languages. 

 

 

Hard Drivin came about as in the original GTW book, Frank Gasking had stated the Lynx version was meet with a positive reaction at review and i remembered C+VG giving it 40% abd I had mentioned this on a forum at the time only to be shot down by an individual, who had claimed they were the only magazine to score it badly. 

 

Clearly they weren't. 

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20 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

“Interet” isn’t an overall score, is it? It’s just how interesting the concept was, right?

The closest thing I ever saw in the UK press was ACE with it's predicted interest graph nonsense.. 

 

But they gave a final review score as well, but had to be different and score out of a 1000 ?

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  • 2 years later...

I'm going to review...the Lynx at PRGE 2023! I'm still sour that there was nothing at PRGE for its 30th in 2019.

 

The stellar Jag panel actually featured a lot of interesting info on the Lynx; you could tell that all involved were heartbroken that Atari changed direction with the Panther. That in-development TV link would have been a game-changer...

 

And, yes, it appears that some dev was going on to use the Lynx as a controller for Jag AvP. I'd love to know what was in Atari's "secret hardware room".

 

It was nice to see Growing Ties Deluxe and Odynexus for sale (I bought both). And the Lynx display in the museum was great, although I note that PITS was missing. I was also hoping that someone would have brought Bitchy so that I could finally play the thing.

Edited by davidcalgary29
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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 months later...

(Played on Evercade, using save-states etc):

 

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Blue Lightning:

 

   Brilliant, spectacular 3D super-scaler graphics. It’s colorful, vibrant, uses texture mapping on the ground. You can on many levels shift altitudes quite alot, some levels have 2 different cloud layers.

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Other levels have you dodging Canyon-cliffs, or having dive into valleys or inbetween hills to take out ground targets. Types of landscapes includes desert, green hills, inland country-sides, islands with ocean distances to cross inbetween, city-streets seen below. 

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One a level there are shifts from day to night to dawn. Plenty of action happen on-screen, and the framerate is fairly even with only a few slowdowns when extremely many objects are on-screen. Graphics are massively impressive and very, very pleasing. For a handheld system released back in 1989/90, this is nothing short of jaw-dropping.

 

9,5/10 

 

Sound and music is much more sparse and is just enough to satisfy. You have the sounds of gunfire, rockets launching and some some airplane sounds, and of course an endless onslougth of explosions.

It works, but adds nothing in the direction of cinemstic feels or adrenaline-pumping music. It feels actually a bit Sim.-like as to sound. There is an intro-melody. Its not particulary good. Feels more like 80ies sports-news music to me, nothing that gives me any heightened feeling of action, coolness, adrenaline or grandness. I miss somr cool, upbeat music here.

 

6/10

 

   Gameplay is very good. Higly responsive and intuitive controls. You can shoot endless rounds of the gun, and have solid supply of rockets. Each of the missions have one or more objectives that you must achieve. Not very complex tasks, but things like taking out particular enemy-targets or land several times during a level to deliver things, which means you have to shoot down everything and survive until you see a landing strip, then get to it, land, take-off and repeat.

Missions can get pretty hard. I’m glad I could play this on Evercade (…and now Analogue Pocket w/ Lynx Adapter), because screens are much, much better now, and with save-states you don’t need to dedicate your life to get through a game. You can turn on afterburner to gain very high speed. Good for getting to next section of a level. Not so good in canyons or if entering a bullet and rocket-hell. If the latter happens, holding the other select button and moving left or right, will have your F 18 spin around and almost be untouchable from imcoming rockets. However you may still crash in topography. If you do that, you restart the level! Ic you ‘only’ get shot down, you start in air where you died, until all lives are lost or you complete the mission.

 
9/10

 

There are 9 missions, which gets increasingly tougher, demanding you master tougher, more intense, more complex or more precise actions. There are passwords for each of the missions. 
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Plenty of fun to be had here. I could perhaps have wished for a setup of say 15 missions, with some inbetween levels that were easier and just provided crusing and flight shoot ‘em up action, before going back to tighter missions. As it is now, it’s pretty tough, but you won’t miss action - as enemy rockets swarm from air and ground/sea targets, while you must dodge topographical hazards and planes. 
There’s definitly replay-value here as it is mostly a pure action-game.

 

8,5/10

 

Conclusion: 

   A Triumph of a early handheld game. You essentially get to play something that only Arcade machines had been able to pull off previously, - only you can play it on the go. Only thing missing is cool, upbeat ingame music. Given this was an early title for the Lynx, which was an early handheld system, it’s just spectacular.

Today it provides a very fun visit to the best of the best that early handheld gaming could pull off, therefore this is a:

 

 

9,5/10

 

 

 

 

 


 

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Edited by Giles N
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  • 3 weeks later...

Mini review
 

(Played on Analogue Pocket using save-states)

 

RYGAR

 

Not a deep game, and slightly shorter than the Arcade. A fantasy action platformer. The graphics have been zoomed, due to the Lynx’ lower resolution, so the playfield is smaller. But the graphics look very nice and colorful. Animations are smooth. The only drawback in my view, is the lower framerate, meaning the scrolling playfield jerks a bit, although no lag, or very little is felt on the gameplay which is sharp and responsive. Music is repetetive but does the job done, like in the arcade.

If you’re into run/shoot/throw/stab-action-platformers and collect for the Lynx this should be a top priority provided you don’t look for anything deep, but just lots of action.

 

Graphics: 8,5/10

Sound: 7/10

Playability: 8,5/10

Lastability: 7/10

 

Overall: 8/10

 

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Edited by Giles N
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