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In my mind the Lynx had the best library of arcade conversions of any machine of its time, maybe not by quantity but most definitely by quality. The little Lynx always managed to put out near arcade perfect conversions of everything converted to it and often of games that most people thought not possible. Hard Drivin' is one of those such games and wowed coin-op gamers with its solid 3D polygon graphics, realistic controls and action replays. This mini version pretty much copies everything except for the steering wheel and car shaped cabinet. You have the speed track and the harder but more impressive stunt track with its loop the loop, you have the smooth polygons graphics with their action replays and you even have the famous cow with its loud moo! As well as the highly impressive graphics you have some decent sounds effects and a nice title tune. Like STUN Runner it’s certainly a game that you can use to show off to people exactly how powerful the Lynx is. The controls make take some getting used to for many but once you master them you will get a lot of fun out of the game and finally get to that final race against the legendary Photon Phantom!

Don’t let the simple name fool you here, Hockey is actually a very involving version of the sport that was popularised by EA with their NHL series of games. This game also appeared on the Mega Drive and was endorsed by ice hockey legend Mario Lemieux. Another interesting fact is that Alpine Studios went on to be renamed Ringler Studios and made Accolade’s sports games for the Jaguar. The action here is viewed side on with a scrolling rink and rather than it always switching you to the nearest player to the puck you can actually choose who you control allowing you to get stuck in however you wish. These leads on to the next part and one of the biggest attractions of ice hockey, the fighting! In Hockey this is such an integral part of the game that it actually lets you choose to play it on its own! You get a nice side-on view of the players from the waist up and can perform a number of different punches to take out your opponent. Hockey also has different stats for each player too so some are better at scrapping than others requiring you to choose your team carefully if getting violent is your thing! Hockey looks great with its digitised presentation screens and great in-game graphics. Sound wise its just what you expect with organ music, swooshing effects and lots of grunts and groans when you fight. This might not be a game that everyone will enjoy but real puckers will find this to be a very ice game indeed!

A conversion of the Atari arcade game of the same name, Hydra, can best be described as Road Blasters in boat. You play the part of a courier in specially designed high powered speedboat who has to deliver top secret parcels all over the world using the globe’s great rivers. Other people on the water want these packages too and will do anything to stop you and steal it. Your boat is equipped with guns, limited boosts and ever decreasing fuel. Just like Road Blasters shooting the enemies reveals extra fuel globes in addition to ones scattered along the water. The boosts are also limited and when used make your speedboat fly into the air! This allows you to both collect the bags of money hanging from balloons and take down flying enemies too. The bags of dosh are also littered around the rivers too and add up to give you a bonus at the end of each level. Hydra uses the Lynx scaling chip to the max and really does look fantastic. In the sound department I was disappointed with the lack of the music from the arcade game that other home versions had. All in all though Hydra is a rather under rated game in the Lynx library and often over looked in favour of Road Blasters or STUN Runner, if you already own those titles then you really should be giving this game a look.

This game is often overlooked by Lynx owners who simply think it looks boring or opt for the fairly similar mah-jong game Shanghai. But where as Shanghai is all about removing tiles Ishido is about placing them. The tiles (although different sets can be chosen) are based on ancient runes, which were stones which symbols carved on them used for predicting fortunes and getting answers from the gods. You have a bag of runes that can’t be seen and the idea is to place these onto the play field so that the rune matches another on the screen by either colour or symbol and place it next to it. Sounds easy? Well it is at first but once you have laid several down you have to place runes next to 2 or more others where you must make the colour or symbol match all the other runes next to it! So tactics are required and my tip is to start in each corner with a different symbol and work your way round predicting the colour matches you will have to make later. There are loads of options and ways to play the game including a competition mode where you take it in turns to place the runes against another player or the computer. There is also an oracle mode where it gives you ancient wisdom based upon the runes you place! Graphics are simple and unspectacular but the fireworks display it gives you is very nice. Sound is even more simple with just a few blips and beeps - speech and music would have been really nice here especially as it probably isn't a very big game. Ishido does really excel in the gameplay department though; it requires skill, thought, logic and is very addictive too. The extra modes also help add longevity to the game and it is one game card you will keep coming back too - a perfect handheld game.

One of the few licensed sports games on the Lynx this title uses both the image and even the voice of legendary US tennis player Jimmy Connors! When you first turn it on to see a digitised image of the great man and then listen to him present the game you know it’s going to be rather good indeed. There are a series of options to customise your game and do things like choosing your sex before it’s onto the courts themselves. In tournament mode you battle through a series of matches just like a real Grandslam before you meet Jimmy himself in the final and boy is he hard to beat! You can pull off just about every shot possible and there is a nice little system that quickly previews where the ball will land. Both graphics and sound in JCT are brilliant with fluid animation on the sprites and wonderful speech throughout. Gameplay is a little hard but its certainly not unfair and you can also comlynx with up to 3 friends in multi-player. If you are a sports fan then you will really dig Jimmy Connors’ Tennis, it might be the Lynx’s only tennis game but it is a very good one.

Widely regarded as the best home version of Williams classic arcade game Lynx Joust is even better than the wonderful 7800 version. For anyone who has been hiding in a hole in the north pole and has never played Joust it’s a strange concept. You are a warrior flying an ostrich and you must use your lance to knock the enemies off their giant birds. Once you kill a bad guy you must collect the egg before it can regenerate into a new much tougher combatant. Take too long and a giant pterodactyl will arrive to take you out! The graphics are small but they are perfectly recreated and Shadowsoft chose to digitise all the original coin-op's sounds to make it even more perfect. If you are a fan of the arcade original or classic games in general then you must own this timeless classic for the portable Atari.

This game is one of the most converted arcade games ever but for those who don't know Klax is a tile based puzzler that requires you to drop different coloured bricks into a pit to form lines of three or more in the same colour either horizontally, vertically or diagonally. These bricks make their way to a pit along a conveyor belt that moves faster and faster as the levels increase. More colours are also added as the game progresses. You have a paddle to catch the bricks at the end of the belt and then drop them, your paddle can hold 5 at a time and if you miss a catch you loose a life. There are different criteria to achieve on each level such as points wave (score a certain amount of points), Diagonal wave (complete a certain amount of diagonals) and tile wave (shift a set amount of bricks). One of the best features of Klax are the secret Klaxes that can be used to achieve warps, such as the well known giant X. Widely regarded as THE best version of this classic game the Lynx version is played vertically, like Gauntlet 3, and it works really well. The graphics are really good although due to the screen change a couple of the backdrops are missing. The gameplay is fast a furious too but what makes this game is the amazing speech that left many people gobsmacked back in the day. Oooh's, Ahhh's, clapping and wave announcements are all made in crystal clear stereo. The title tune is worthy of note also. Its only minor bad point is the lack of comlynx - if it had been included this game would surely be a 10.

Despite being one of the very first 3rd party games announced by Telegames for the Atari Lynx for some reason this title never saw the light until 3 years later! Once you start playing the game it quickly becomes apparent why, it was never finished. Obviously Telegames kept it on the shelf hoping to one day finish it and then just gave up and released it anyway. The original adverts for this crazy golf game claim 18 holes of madness, this released game only has 9. In fact on closer look you will find it’s actually 7 as holes 8 and 9 are repeats of 1 & 2, I kid you not! The ball physics are dodgy at best and it’s full of bugs, especially in multi-player mode. Graphically it looks alright and the title screen music is ok, needs more in game sound though. The unfinished nature of the game really does make this a title to avoid, a great shame considering this is just the type of product that works perfectly on a handheld (see Putt & Putter on the Sega Game Gear).

Whenever somebody asks if there are any bad games on the Lynx for some reason this title always comes up and I think it gets a bit of a raw deal. Sure it’s pretty goofy and far from the best example of a scrolling beat ‘em up but it does play pretty well and is a lot of fun and that is what matters most right? The quite hilarious plot sees you come home to open your fridge and find that a top-secret formula you were storing in there has brought everything to life! It then has an effect on you to as you are shrunken down and sucked into the chiller. I really loved the way this game actually has an animated intro showing you this. Then it’s into the action as you battle your way through each shelf in your fridge battling the mutant tomatoes, rabid Brussels sprouts, deadly ice cubes and carnivorous carrots! You have fairly limited moves available but enough to give the enemy a good kicking, at the end of each level you also have to fight a boss. Graphically Kung Food is pretty good, I don’t much like the main sprite but all the enemy ones look fantastic. It’s good when it comes to sound too as there is a nice soundtrack playing throughout the game. If you are a fan of scrolling beat ‘em ups then give Kung Food a look, especially given how cheaply this game can be picked up.