#oneaday Day 585: The Joy of The Lynx's Big Pixels

I never really appreciated it to this degree back in the day, but the Atari Lynx has an absolutely delightful aesthetic if you blow its visuals up to "TV size". It turns out that the Atari Lynx's look and feel is exactly what a significant number of modern indie developers think all retro games look like. So I thought I'd share a few favourite examples with you today.

Here's Checkered Flag, a Pole Position-esque racing game that many consider to be a highlight of the system. While it may lack undulating roads — which disappointed me a great deal back in the day! — it has some great courses and a wonderful sense of speed.

Here's California Games, a game I never owned my own copy of, but which was the first thing I ever saw running on a Lynx. I don't love the game, but it's a good showcase of what the system can do, and I'm looking forward to revisiting it when the Evercade resurrects a significant proportion of the Lynx's library later this year.

Here's an intro screen from Electro Cop, noteworthy for both its big chunky font and the detailed background, even at that low a resolution.

Here's part of the intro to Gates of Zendocon, showing that hardware sprite scaling off a treat!

And here's an in-game shot of Gates of Zendocon (with a little unwanted input from NVidia in the corner). I love the way this one looks and, again, am looking forward to revisiting it on Evercade.

I never played Ms. Pac-Man on Lynx back in the day because I always felt the system was "better" than simple arcade games. With retrospect, I can now recognise that the system was absolutely perfect for simple arcade games, even if it lacked a little in screen resolution compared to the original!

Here's Ninja Gaiden, a bold attempt to bring the arcade-style belt-scrolling beat 'em up to Lynx — actually a cracking good game.

Here's first-person shooter Turbo Sub, probably one of the smoothest moving, slickest games on the system — and a fabulous blaster to boot.

Here's surprisingly detailed World War I air combat sim Warbirds, which had a good flight model and a variety of missions to take on — although they were all heavily dogfight-based.

And here's gratuitous Wonderboy ripoff Viking Child, one of the most sluggish platformers in existence — but actually a decent game if you can deal with its snail-like pace!

A lot of these are coming back in the two Atari Lynx Collection cartridges for Evercade later in the year, but I'd love to see Turbo Sub and Warbirds make a comeback too — those were some real favourites back in the day.

In the meantime, I can at least enjoy them in all their giant-pixel glory thanks to emulation!