Monthly Archives: August 2020

Image of the Atari Lynx handheld game unit, 1989

Reason for Failure of Atari Lynx Handheld #469

“You steal my guitar? I shoot you in the crotch! Wait, forgot my gun.”

Outside of the obligatory (and quite good) official Atari arcade ports to the Lynx, one struggles to think of a reason for gamers of the 90’s to have picked one up. It’s certainly not for the mostly bizarre third-party games that remain. Take, for example, this one from Telegames. I can’t imagine people being enticed by such a confusing and inscrutable box cover, saddled with the title Fat Bobby. I have a hard time just picking out the protagonist. Guitar guy is more prominently placed, but then again the other guy seems more relevant to the title…. which I always read as ‘Fat Boobie’ for some reason. Maybe it’s the font.

Fat Bobbie, a video game for the Atari Lynx handheld console

Guitaratica!

To read more about the Atari Lynx and the great computer game developer Epyx that created it, consult my article on the whole works, here.

 

Logo for Imagic, a video game company

All the Console-Exclusive Imagic Games for the Intellivision

Nobody beat the Atari 2600 for third-party game support, but Mattel’s Intellivision console wasn’t a slouch in that department, either. While one could argue that the shovelware foisted onto Atari’s flagship system was one of the culprits of the Great Videogame Crash of 1983, third-party support was also crucial for a console’s future on the market, as well. And maybe the greatest external game developer for the Inty was Imagic, who not only made games for the system, but good games, many of which utilized the advanced power inside the system to bring gamers to places no one had ever imagined possible. I made this video to showcase why Imagic was #1 with Intellivision owners in the later stage of the console: