Getting back into LYNX hardcore!

[Neo Alec]

Awesome collection! Are those all complete? How'd you do that? Must have taken some work.

 

[GunstarHero]

Thanks.

Meh, not much work, just takes money. I think I have about half the library right now. Alot of those games are dissapointing though. But, I have some goals for my gaming collection. I want to one day obtain all Jaguar and Lynx official releases(complete). Shouldn't be too hard. I only need 5-6 Jaguar games, but they're all moderately expensive.

 

[pixeljunkie]

Thanks.

Meh, not much work, just takes money. I think I have about half the library right now. Alot of those games are dissapointing though. But, I have some goals for my gaming collection. I want to one day obtain all Jaguar and Lynx official releases(complete). Shouldn't be too hard. I only need 5-6 Jaguar games, but they're all moderately expensive.

sold my mint Jaguar setup [w/CDrom] and about 30 boxed/complete games [Towers 2 among them] when I was in college for like $250....epic fail

 

[Neo Alec]

What I really need now is a Jaguar CD. They aren't as easy to come by on ebay as they were 8 years ago. I should have bought one then. Now I probably never will.

 

[GunstarHero]

What I really need now is a Jaguar CD. They aren't as easy to come by on ebay as they were 8 years ago. I should have bought one then. Now I probably never will.

Yes, those are getting unreal in value. I'll say this though, it's purely a collector's item. I have most of the CD games, and I can't recommend it to someone interested in actually playing the games for it. The only time I use it is to mess around with the VLM, and to watch Jag Ads 2.0

 

[genjuro1]

I just bought a Lynx II (my third) about 2 or 3 months ago.
I've got Pit-Fighter, Ninja Gaiden, Stun Runner (Amazing Port), Blue Lightning, and Rygar.

The Lynx will always be my favorite handheld. It was soo far ahead of it's time. The type of games that came out for this system in 1989, and thru the early 90's was mind blowing. Especially because these games had arcade quality graphics that were being done on a handheld system.
I mean Blue Lightning came out in 1989, and the graphics would have been very good if done on a console; but on a Handheld?! Stun Runner (1991) damn-near arcade perfect. Hard Drivin' (1990) Polygons on a portable?! In 1990?! Yes, it had a choppy slow frame-rate, but I got used to it. Still, seeing these type of arcade games being ported to a handheld was cool as hell to me back then.
The Ninja Gaiden beat 'em up sealed the deal for me. I loved that game in the arcade, and after reading the EGM review were it got all 8's! It was a wrap. The Lynx became a must-buy.
The 16-bit graphics chip, and the scaling and rotation was put to serious work on a few games (Stun-Runner, War-Birds, Hard Drivin', Blue Lightning, Xybots, etc.) I could go on, and on.
The Lynx will always be my favorite handheld, just because I was so blown away by what I was seeing on a handheld at the time.

 

[sketch]

The one bad thing I have to say about the Lynx (at least with my experience with the Lynx II), was that they were not durable. They couldn't hold up to the everyday wears and tears of gaming.

I had two malfuntion on me. The first one I had, one of the fire buttons would randomly go off without me touching it. I sent it to Atari with $50, and they sent me a new one. Then with that one, the d-pad malfuntioned. It would keep inputting right every 3 seconds or so, without me touching it.

I LOVED my Lynx so I took care of it. I had the carrying case, and whenever I wasn't playing it, that's where it stayed. In a drawer in my nightstand that was dedicated to the Lynx, accessories, and games.

Wikipedia stated this about the Lynx as well. Did anybody else have this problem with their Lynx?

This isn't really a durability issue. I've had my Lynx for 18 years and it's still working perfectly. That said, this is probably a maintenance issue. All you need to do is take the Lynx apart and clean the connectors. I did it once (many years ago) and strangely never had to do it again. Perhaps there were particles inadvertently left in the Lynx due to the manufacturing process (this seems like something Atari at that time would have been guilty of).

The Lynx comes apart fairly easily as I recall (and I'm not that handy). You had to be careful with the ribbon attached to the monitor, but it wasn't too difficult to get to the joypad and buttons and clean them out with a Q-tip. Definitely look for instructions online if you want to do this. The one downside is that you have to peel the rubber grips off of your Lynx II. I have no idea how easy or hard this is on the Lynx I (or if it's as prevalent an issue).

 

[Neo Alec]

My kid brother had a Lynx back in the day, and it fell on the floor and the screen cracked. The DC power input also stopped working. But it still worked with AA's, despite the crack in the screen. We didn't bother to replace it for many years because we didn't want to send Atari $50 for a new one.

The Lynx is very easy to open and replace parts. We went through a bunch of them with bad buttons later on, that we kept returning to the used games store. Finally I just bought a second one that wouldn't power up for $5 on ebay, opened the two up, and replaced the button sensor sheet. Very easy.

 

[pixeljunkie]

This isn't really a durability issue. I've had my Lynx for 18 years and it's still working perfectly. That said, this is probably a maintenance issue. All you need to do is take the Lynx apart and clean the connectors. I did it once (many years ago) and strangely never had to do it again. Perhaps there were particles inadvertently left in the Lynx due to the manufacturing process (this seems like something Atari at that time would have been guilty of).

The Lynx comes apart fairly easily as I recall (and I'm not that handy). You had to be careful with the ribbon attached to the monitor, but it wasn't too difficult to get to the joypad and buttons and clean them out with a Q-tip. Definitely look for instructions online if you want to do this. The one downside is that you have to peel the rubber grips off of your Lynx II. I have no idea how easy or hard this is on the Lynx I (or if it's as prevalent an issue).

ditto, have my Lynx 1 since 1990. Still works like a charm....paint all worn off, but works great. It was not a console for dirty kids who drop shit. I took care of mine. If you bought a Lynx new it will last as long as you want it to.

 

[GunstarHero]

Yeah, always considered the Lynx a tank for durability. I've dropped mine a few times at work (hard) and it still works great. The Lynx as fragile is news to me, never heard of that as an issue before.