The five worst games for the Lynx

[PFG 9000]

Oh man.  This is a cool topic, and there are a ton of comments I'd like to reply to, but what's the point when they were posted 20 years ago?

 

Here are mine:

Hard Drivin' - I've heard the arcade original was great in its time, but I've only played the ports, and they're all terrible.  The Lynx version is no exception - while it's a programming marvel, it just has too painful a framerate to be enjoyable.

Lynx Casino - Boring.  Some of the graphics aren't bad, but I can't stay awake long enough to appreciate them

Viking Child - I could see this being a pretty decent game, but it plays embarrassingly slowly.  It should never have been released in its current state.

Krazy Ace Miniature Golf - It's not terrible.  But it's really unpolished and feels more like a demo.  Yet for the longest time it was the priciest, most hard to find Lynx title.

Probably one of the sports titles I haven't played.  They're not at all my thing.  So if they're bad, I wouldn't know. 

 

Basketbrawl, however, is bloody good fun.  I really like that game and it irks me to see it listed so often here.  It's not perfect, but it's absolutely playable, and it's a really fun concept.  I love knocking out the other team and then scoring basket after basket while they're napping.

 

And the guy who listed Rampart clearly needs to play more games.

 

[PFG 9000]

(Sorry, the forum is being crazy...please delete.)

Edited January 23 by PFG 9000

[PFG 9000]

Every time I try to edit my post, the forum posts another copy of my comment.  Sorry!

Edited January 23 by PFG 9000
Quadruple post

[PFG 9000]

Eek!  Double post...please delete.

[+jgkspsx]

On 1/22/2024 at 9:07 PM, PFG 9000 said:

Viking Child - I could see this being a pretty decent game, but it plays embarrassingly slowly.  It should never have been released in its current state.

I enjoy Lynx Casino (and the other patrons give it a lot of personality) but I am with you on this one. The Game Boy version is equally bad. The Lynx could really use a decent Wonder Boy in Monster Land clone, but this ain't it.

On 1/22/2024 at 9:07 PM, PFG 9000 said:

And the guy who listed Rampart clearly needs to play more games.

Yeah, that was probably the hottest take in the thread. Unless he thought it was the five best games thread??

[KidGameR186496]

It would have to go with Super Off-Road as the absolute worst game on the Atari Lynx. It sucks that a port of a game that i'm a fan of runs like utter bullcrap. It has to be the worst game on the Lynx in terms of technical performance.

[+jeremiahjt]

On 1/28/2024 at 7:07 PM, KidGameR186496 said:

It would have to go with Super Off-Road as the absolute worst game on the Atari Lynx. It sucks that a port of a game that i'm a fan of runs like utter bullcrap. It has to be the worst game on the Lynx in terms of technical performance.

I enjoy the Lynx version of Super Off-Road.  It would make my top 20 Lynx games easy.

[PFG 9000]

How?  It runs so terribly!  I want to love it, because the arcade and SNES versions are crazy fun.  But it's too choppy to be enjoyable, for me.

 

Still, I'm really glad that somebody loves it.  Maybe I need to give it some more chances.

[+jeremiahjt]

16 hours ago, PFG 9000 said:

How?  It runs so terribly!  I want to love it, because the arcade and SNES versions are crazy fun.  But it's too choppy to be enjoyable, for me.

 

Still, I'm really glad that somebody loves it.  Maybe I need to give it some more chances.

I think I am just not bothered by the choppiness.  The same thing happens sometimes with games that have sound problems or slow down. It just does not bother me.

[tripled79]

I think the Lynx version of Pit-Fighter is one of the best of the ports. And I also enjoy this game from time to time so I would have to disagree.

 

You gotta love those three second music loops and getting beat up by a giant man in a diaper...

[Shaggy the Atarian]

On 1/21/2024 at 6:57 AM, jgkspsx said:

1. Krazy Ace Miniature Golf (rankly unfinished)

2. Dirty Larry (aged poorly, played like crap all along)

3. Super Off Road (frame rate is horrific and controls are deeply frustrating)

4. Batman Returns (Batman does not play well, all of the artistic effort went into the first level)

5. World Class Fussball/Soccer (in a world full of good soccer games, being the worst soccer game on the Lynx is a sure way to not get played much)

I've only played two of those (Dirty Larry and Batman) and would agree that they are just not very fun to play. At least they look great  But to be fair, I had Batman on the Gameboy and would rather play the Lynx game, if I had no other choices. For some reason, most Batman games from the late 80s/early 90s just sucked, as they dialed the difficulty up to 11.

 

I remember reading a review of Krazy Ace in Gamepro where it sounded like they enjoyed the game...but I should fire it up on my LynXGD to see what it's all about.

 

On 1/22/2024 at 7:07 PM, PFG 9000 said:

Here are mine:

Hard Drivin' - I've heard the arcade original was great in its time, but I've only played the ports, and they're all terrible.  The Lynx version is no exception - while it's a programming marvel, it just has too painful a framerate to be enjoyable.

Lynx Casino - Boring.  Some of the graphics aren't bad, but I can't stay awake long enough to appreciate them

Viking Child - I could see this being a pretty decent game, but it plays embarrassingly slowly.  It should never have been released in its current state.

Krazy Ace Miniature Golf - It's not terrible.  But it's really unpolished and feels more like a demo.  Yet for the longest time it was the priciest, most hard to find Lynx title.

Probably one of the sports titles I haven't played.  They're not at all my thing.  So if they're bad, I wouldn't know. 

 

Basketbrawl, however, is bloody good fun.  I really like that game and it irks me to see it listed so often here.  It's not perfect, but it's absolutely playable, and it's a really fun concept.  I love knocking out the other team and then scoring basket after basket while they're napping.

 

And the guy who listed Rampart clearly needs to play more games.

 

Hard Drivin' is only good in the arcade, where it doesn't have the frame rate of a snail running through molasses. It is surprising that something as vastly low powered to that arcade hardware could even manage it in some degree though.

 

I've not played Lynx Casino but did play Viking Child quite a bit. I liked it and wouldn't put it in my bottom 5, but it did need some extra polish and for the love of MIKEY, some music. The main thing that bugs me about it though are the attacks. The coder should've been forced to play some sword swinging platformers like Strider for a week straight, then gone and worked on VC. That's the main element that should be satisfying in a game like this.

 

I can't agree with Basketbrawl, but maybe its because I'm not a fan of sports games. Whether its on the Lynx or 7800, BB is only fun to me when its played against a human opponent, but good luck finding someone who wants to spend time on it. 

 

My bottom five but in no particular order of suckiness

 

• Hard Drivin - For the reasons stated above
• Steel Talons - If you're going to hate on Hard Drivin' then you gotta hate on this one. It's a nice technical achievement but its not very fun. 
• Basketbrawl - If I want to play a beat 'em up, I'll play Double Dragon, not this thing where you're fighting over a ball most of the time.
• Block Out - Never cared for this one in any version. If I'm going to play Tetris, then I'd rather play Tetris. In the case of the Lynx, play KLAX instead
• Ishido - If I'm going to play a tile puzzle game, Shanghai. This game just isn't fun, even if you know what you're doing

Batman might be #6 for me  

 

On 4/2/2024 at 2:14 PM, jeremiahjt said:

I think I am just not bothered by the choppiness.  The same thing happens sometimes with games that have sound problems or slow down. It just does not bother me.

To each their own, but hearing this is like hearing about a person without an inner monologue - I just don't get how it doesn't bother you. Maybe its because I'm around arcade games every day, where they set a standard for smooth frame rates and quick responsiveness. Switching to something janky & choppy (particular when it comes to ports) is hard to be happy with, for me. 

[+jgkspsx]

Block Out and Ishido are two of my favorite puzzle games ever, and two of my top 20 of the system. Ishido is probably in the top 10.

 

Steel Talons has a terrible framerate, but I have no problem feeling like I am in control. It's the lack of feeling of control in Hard Drivin' that makes it not much fun for me. But not bottom five.

[Giles N]

I got Dirty Larry now.
 

I haven’t played it much.

 

Don’t want to either after the 2 first goes.

Edited April 24 by Giles N

[Giles N]

Pit Fighter just gotta be way down into the pit, but bottom 5…?

 

Well, its really strong contender technically in most respects, but somehow they managed to let tiny bit of actual fun remain…

 

‘Fussball Soccer’ is definitly down there somewhere.

They’ve worked hard to perfect its dreadfulness in every respect and make sure it just cannot provide any fun in any way; not fun in some ‘terrible-game but guilty pleasure-thing’, nor ‘bad game but with some obscure or nebulous redeeming quality’, just utterly depleted of fun.

 

[agradeneu]

World Class Soccer is an abomination. The only game that really really has no redeeming quality. 

 

My personal bottom 5:

 

- Dirty Larry (all gfx, no gameplay)

- Jimmy Connors Tennis (because I really wanted a great tennis game on Lynx and its a slow, clunky mess)

- Gordo  (unfair, messy design)

- Power Factor (boring, clunky)

- World Class Soccer 

 

Dishonorable mentions: Krazy Ace, Batman, that Telegames platfomer with a guitar player

[LordKraken]

30 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

World Class Soccer is an abomination. The only game that really really has no redeeming quality. 

I can find one: the fullscreen introduction animation is great! Also 0.5 points more for the tentative of having a zoom/unzoom dynamically on the action like a neo-geo game. Didn't work at all but they tried.

[Ninjabba]

19 minutes ago, LordKraken said:

I can find one: the fullscreen introduction animation is great! Also 0.5 points more for the tentative of having a zoom/unzoom dynamically on the action like a neo-geo game. Didn't work at all but they tried.

There is a "bug" in this game that if you zig-zag constantly when having ball possession, the CPU cannot figure out how to get the ball including the goalie. This game is probably the least favorite in my collection, but I got this game the same year as the World Cup in 1994 and played the hell out of it during that cup.

 

I tried to come up with a list of 5, but apparently I mainly have the good games of the Lynx.. can't think past Batman and World Class Soccer, and even these games gave me so much joy back in the days.

 

[+jgkspsx]

I personally like Jimmy Connors and Power Factor, even if I think they could be a lot better. Power Factor in particular has the germ of an awesome game. Just dialing down the missiles shooting at you from offscreen would have changed it much for the better.

 

I even kind of like Gordo and Kung Food... speaking of which I need to respond to @jeremiahjt's challenge on Antstream...