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RetroMo: Atari Lynx
Written by Señor Cha Cha on Friday, May 26, 2006
Ok, so the Lynx was HUGE, had horrid battery life, and an astonishingly bad button layout, but it had Klax. KLAX!
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Realizing that its original model was a bit too extreme, Atari decided to remodel the Lynx and release a different version, and thus, the Lynx II was born. Let's take a gander at it.
As you can see, the Lynx is the epitome of American design (as in insanely huge). There's plenty of real estate for people with Andre the Giant sized meat claws. The d-pad is larger than most (if not all) of its competitors (past and present), the screen is a decent size, allowing the user to hold the system comfortably instead of close to the face, and all of the buttons are within reach. It's not the most ergonomic of designs, but everything just feels conveniently placed on the Lynx.
Ok, so let's take a closer look at the center of the system. In the middle is the screen, which, it pains me to say, kind of sucks. The resolution on the Lynx is just awful. It was awful when it was first released, and it's even uglier in 2006. That's not to say that the Game Boy's is any better, but it's not what I envision for $190.
Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's examine the buttons.
First, we come to the left side. For whatever reason, the developers decided to create two buttons for powering on and off the system, hence the On and Off buttons, which are just plain stupid. They serve their purpose, but why the hell would anyone do that? Anyway, then there's the Backlight button that's pretty much useless. Seriously, you can never see anything, even in good light. Just some truly awkward decisions here. I appreciate the Backlight button's purpose (to conserve battery life I hope), but it doesn't work.
On the right we have the downright goofy buttons. The Option 1 button is the Turbo function, but it doesn't work in all games. Then things get a tad bit confusing. The Lynx's manual makes reference to a Pause button, but no such animal is described on the system. It's actually the button just below Option 1. And, the buttons do things when pressed at the same time. Option 1 and Pause restarts a game, and Option 2 and Pause flips the screen upside down so you can play left handed. As for Option 2, it's sort of like Option 1 in that it does...umm...stuff. The manual says Another optional button used in some games to give you even more capabilities and control. Option 2 may, for example, allow you to use certain objects or turn the music on or off. Hmm...thanks Mr. Vague, enemy of Captain Obvious.
posted May 28, 2006