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Lemmings has to be one of the all-time greatest strategy puzzle games, an instant classic on release it was converted to just about every single home computer and console known to man. Of them the Lynx version is certainly one of the best and it’s amazing how well those tiny graphics work on a small screen. On the home versions you selected your lemming skills using a bar a long the bottom of the screen. In this Lynx version they chose to make it a separate screen in order to keep the playfield bigger. This may sound strange at first but it works very well, basically the game pauses when you go to this screen. This actually gives you a bit of an advantage as you not only have more time to select the right type of skill but also acts as a time out to help you think. The Lynx version features all the different skill levels and passwords as well as a great new feature, the ability to fast forward the game rather than wait for all your lemmings to get into the exit. The graphics are excellent throughout, the tiny lemmings are animated brilliantly and some of the levels look stunning on the small screen. This is no slouch in the sound department either with all the original tunes perfectly re-created and all the hilarious speech present and correct. A special mention must also go to the brilliant cartoon like intro in this Lynx version. Without doubt one of the finest games on the console this title offers hours of hair pulling fun.

This previously unreleased game was the only original game that was developed by Shadowsoft, all their other games for the Lynx were conversions of old arcade games. It’s also one of the few Lynx games that need to be played vertically just like Klax and is also puzzle game. The game was finally released after the Lynx’s commercial life had ended by Songbird. The basic idea of the game is to drop letters into a pit Tetris style in order to form words of 3 letters and upwards. There are over 20,000 words that are recognised by the game and you can also view the dictionary from the options menu. Words can be formed vertically or horizontally and backwards as well as forwards which is especially useful and often causes you to make a word without even realising! One small problem is that the letters are all dropped with equal abundance so expect to get just as many Z’s or Q’s as A’s or T’s. There are also a number of different game modes you can play here too. Graphics are extremely minimal in this game and rather boring. Sound wise it’s hit and miss; there is some lovely speech for each level but no music and minimal sound effects. You do wonder if Shadowsoft were still going to add polish to both these areas originally. Overall I would say that this is a highly enjoyable game for the Lynx that will certainly please fans of puzzlers and intellectuals, but those who can’t spell might want to steer clear!

Lode Runner for the Lynx is an unreleased prototype version of the game that was first made famous on the Atari 8-bit computer before being converted to loads of other systems. It is a platform game where the object is to run around each screen collecting all the gold much like the classic Manic Miner or Miner 2049’er games. The key difference in this title is though that you are able to dig pits to trap the enemies! You have to be careful where you put these pits though, as it’s very easy to fall into them yourself. As well as climbing ladders and swinging along ropes you sometimes have to dig holes to get to certain areas too. With this Lynx version they have scaled all the graphics down so a whole level will fit on one screen. This means that the sprites are tiny and there is almost no detail to them at all. The sound is almost non-existent with just the odd beep for when you collect the gold or get caught by an enemy. The controls work well and it does play ok in the most part but I did find it was far too fast for my liking. Overall Lode Runner is a fair conversion of the original game but I think it would have needed quite a bit more work made to it in order to make it a commercial quality release. Fans of the original game will no doubt enjoy it but other will want to try this out on emulation or a flash cart before they go and fork out the money on an expensive repro.

Originally programmed by the great Handmade Software who were responsible for some of the Lynx's finest sports games its a conversion of the hit computer game of the same name that was released by Mindscape and coded by Audiogenic. Loopz is a puzzle game with a simple yet addictive concept. After a comprehensive options screen including difficulty mode, controls and even a choice of music its straight into the action. You are given a series of Tetris style shapes that must be placed on the playing field to create solid loopz. They can be as big or small as you like and any shape as long as it loops round so both ends connect. You have a time limit to make the set number of Loopz on each level, take too long to place your piece and it disappears costing you time. Graphics are simple but very clear and the music is really great. A solid and incredibly enjoyable puzzle game for the Lynx that has a great learning curve and is a must for fans of the genre.

Luchsenstein 3D is a 2 level version of the original Wolfenstein 3D game with some impressive graphics that make full use of the Lynx’s advanced hardware abilities. The two levels impressively use different textures and objects to give some nice variation and the pictures of Hitler on the wall set you up nicely for the meeting with the Super Fuehrer himself. There are keys to collect, sometimes hidden amongst the bones of skeletons, health packs to collects and the obligatory gun and ammo. You only start the game with a knife but it’s very satisfying stabbing the Nazi officers to death and watching them bleed! As I have already mentioned the graphics are extremely impressive and they use the Lynx’s ability to scale and rotate images to the max. They do look very pixelated but then so did the original PC version’s too. The frame rate is about 18-30 frames per second, which is very impressive indeed and makes the game very smooth. Sound wise there are sound effects and a couple of little samples but not much else. Sadly the programmer and artist don’t intend to take the game any further than what is here now but they do intend to use the engine to make a completely original FPS game for the Lynx! I for one cannot wait to see that but for now this impressive little demo game will have to do. So fire up Handy or get out your Lynx flash cartridge and give this a try ASAP!

All the thrills of a Vegas casino in your pocket! Well without actually winning any real money that is and that's always the main problem with any gambling game. For it to be any good it has to have something to keep you coming back because lets face it the biggest thrill with most of the games played in a real casino is winning some actual money. Thankfully Lynx Casino just does about achieve that with some nice little features. In this game card we have Craps, Slots, Blackjack, Roulette and of course Poker. All the games play perfectly and while some are more fun to play than others the best thing that you can comlynx to play them with a friend too. My favourite feature in this game though is way its all laid out and presented. You actually have a character that you can control as he walks around the casino itself looking for the tables and other games. Also dotted around the floor are a host of other punters who you can actually go up to and talk to, this provides a nice bit of amusement and is a really cool and original feature. The graphics and sound aren't really anything to write home about but they do their job well and set the scene. I do think it would have been really cool though if they had included some speech samples for the characters. If you like card games or casino games then you will love this and for everyone else its something you might want to pick up as its a perfect handheld game that you can just stick on and play for short periods of time.

This is game is the first home brew release from German programmer Mathais A also known as Matashen and in case you didn't already guess its based on the classic board game Monopoly. Instead of city streets you have to collect sets of Lynx games but otherwise its pretty much the game you know and love and also features up to 8 player comlynx as well as a save game option. But how does it play do you ask well as a big fan of Monopoly I was really disappointed. The game seems a bit disjointed and often things move to fast to tell what is going on and the way the screen is designed doesn't really help. The graphics are really poor indeed and look they were done in MS Paint, home brew or not you really do expect better things from a Lynx game. The sound isn't too bad but nothing remarkable. As much as I like to support homebrew games I really can't recommend this game to anybody other than people who collect every game or just want to support the author.

Lynx Poker is actually a release of an Atari prototype that was found on the hard drive of an Atari TT formally belonging to the former head tester at Sunnyvale. What makes this game stranger is that up until recently it wasn’t even known to exist as it never appeared on any release lists or was shown in any form to the press. At first it was thought it may have been intended to be one of the sub-games on Lynx Casino but once you play the game it becomes clear its an original game. The game has no intro screens so you just lay your bets and get straight into the action. Once into the gameplay it lays out 5 cards and then lets you choose which cards if any you want to hold. There also seems to be an auto-hold feature as if you get anything from a pair up it selects them for you, although you can un-select them yourself if you wish. Then after discarding the cards you don’t want it calls your hand and lets you know if you won or not. If you don’t win it just returns to the bet screen but if you do win it initiates another little feature. This next part of the game asks you if you want to bet higher or lower than a seven to double your money and then draws a card to give you the result. The visuals here are clear and well defined., with big nicely drawn cards, easy to read splash screens and good designs. The sound is pretty sparse with nothing more than a few sound effects. This proto is probably around 75% complete and while it’s not the deepest game around it will definitely appeal to poker fans.

Handmade really did produce some fantastic sports titles for the Lynx, we have already had the brilliant Awesome Golf and Jimmy Connors’ Tennis and this is yet another cracker. The moment you turn this game on you know its going to be superb as the screen pans down the digitised body of a beautiful bikini babe. There is also an extended intro with lots of great use of the scaling chip to watch if you want to. Then you get onto the options and there are plenty of them too. You can choose your skill, sex, name, type of game and define the rules. Once into the game you are presented with a really nice looking side on beach with a net and 4 players. This scrolls back and forth as the ball moves and also features a growing crowd as well as some other nice animated background features. The control method works brilliantly in this game as a red box appears briefly where the ball is going to land giving you plenty of time to reposition. The CPU offers a decent challenge but this game excels in comlynx mode. A special mention must be made for the music, not only is it amazingly good but by pressing the option 2 button you can bring up a CD player to select even more great music! Malibu Bikini Volleyball is one of the very best handheld sports titles out there and an essential purchase for all Lynx fans!

The Lynx version of Marble Madness is not some long lost prototype, like you may be thinking. It is in fact a homebrew version of the Atari Games’ classic that was programmed by Matthias Domin, who many Atari fans will know as the brains behind the Jaguar games Impulse X, Double Feature and Jagmania. Unfortunately he has never finished it and as it was started many years ago now there is little hope of this ever happening. This is a real shame because what is here shows great potential and its clear that this would have made an ideal game for the Lynx. I am not sure how many levels there are here but I got up to level 10 before I ran out of time and died, so there is a fair bit to play. In the arcade game each level had a time limit and you had a set amount of lives. But in the Lynx version you have infinite lives and a time limit for the whole game, not individual levels. Enemies have been implemented on some levels as well as other features like slides and the fans that blow your marble around. There are only simple presentation screens before each level but the in-game graphics are very faithful to the original. Unfortunately no sound or music had been added at this stage. The controls take a little getting used to and there is no doubt they still need refining more if this ever does a release but you can live with them. The ROM out there works with both the Handy emulator and flash cards so I recommend giving it a try and then beg Matthias to finish it!

This is a really neat little Motorcycle racing game that seems finished and it seems strange that is was never released although the game is endorsed by a cigarette company! In fact since the proto was found a number of custom Marlboro Lynx's have also been found that look incredibly cool so something big must have been planned for this title. It actually plays and looks very much like the BMX part of California Games, which as you can probably gather is no bad thing. You use the joypad to move your bike up and down and also to accelerate and brake. You can use the buttons to jump and when you go off a ramp to perform trick too. Each stage must be completed in a time limit and crashing off ramps or hitting rocks causes you to loose some of this valuable time. The graphics look superb with loads of detail, super fast movement and very smooth parallax scrolling. There is also good music and a few sound effects too. If you see a copy of this come up for sale anywhere it is well worth adding to you collection.

Mega Pak 1 (hopefully this means we will see more) is a nice compilation of mini-games and demos made by home brew programmers and put together by Carl Forhan of Songbird. There are 8 different productions on this game card to choose from so I will run through them quickly. Parafly – this is a rather cool copy of one of those old handheld LCD games and looks incredibly authentic. Password – a simple game where you have to choose letters to try and crack the password within a limited amount of tries. Lynx Sketch – another clever copy, this time of that old favourite the Etch-a-Sketch where you draw lines using dials to make pictures. Soundtool – a little application that lets you mess around with all the music contained on the game card and change the instruments and pitch / tone. Chopper X – not to be confused with the Atari ST game this is a copy of the old avoid ‘em up Chopper from the PC that is also known as Superfly on the ST and Jaguar. Pontiac – is just a digitised picture of the famous American car. Black Jack – most interestingly this was written by a Japanese programmer and is a cute version of the well known card game. Dice – another casino game where you roll 5 dice like Yahtzee. This is a nice little collection, while there is nothing outstanding on here there is plenty to pass the time and I liked the addition of all the different music too (some good and some bad), especially the Lynx rendition of “Fever”.

Atari pretty much converted this game to every machine they made and the Lynx was no exception as this became the very first Pacman game to make it onto a handheld console. The Lynx version takes everything that was great about the arcade original, tweaks it and then adds a few features of its own. Firstly we have all the mazes, fruit, gameplay and cartoon style intermissions from the arcade game done perfectly on the small screen. Then we have the addition of larger mazes that can be chosen to take advantage of the Lynx’s wider screen. The graphics have been re-drawn brilliantly to work on the small screen with whole maze visible at once. The sound effects are also as perfect as can be complete with little tunes between levels. Ms. Pacman on the Lynx is an excellent conversion of the classic that will fill the appetite of every Pac-pill muncher out there!

Much like Gauntlet 3 and Klax this is one of the very few games on the Lynx to be played vertically, although it has to be said that you will find there isn’t much of a reason for this and its easy to play the game normally. This game was actually released as part of a special Superbowl package with the Lynx in the US and was much hyped in the press. It features just about everything you would expect including all the real teams, hundreds of plays and comlynx for multi-player madness. The action is viewed from above and the camera zooms in and out of the action making great use of the Lynx’s scaling chip. Everything here is done pretty well but I found the game frustrating to play. The action can get a bit confusing and I found that passing and scoring was pretty hard to do, I think this comes down to a mix of the small screen and viewpoint. While the graphics and sound are both good the gameplay lets this official license down but I am sure die hard fans of the sport will get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

It’s strange that while the computer versions of this game, known as Shadow Warriors, were all direct conversions of the arcade game all the console versions were completely different games! Thankfully the Lynx is the one console version that doesn’t deviate into a mediocre platformer and retains the arcade games beat ‘em up roots. It is near identical to the original and is only missing the annoying (probably why) carpark level and strangely the 2-player mode too. Tecmo really did do a wonderful job here in what is, for me, the best scrolling beat ‘em up on the machine. The graphics are stunning with fluid animation, incredibly detailed backdrops and superb cut-scenes. In the sound department it’s just as good too with one of the best soundtracks you will hear on any Lynx game. Ninja Gaiden might be one of many very good arcade conversions for the machine but it’s also one of the best and really is a must have for Lynx owners. Plus it also comes with a really cool poster that can be seen in many of the Angry Video Game Nerd videos!

After Tecmo’s superb conversion of the original Ninja Gaiden I really couldn’t wait to play this third instalment (strangely II was planned but never released!). I really couldn’t have been more disappointed though as instead of another solid scrolling beat ‘em up we get this awful mess of an action platformer. This game originally appeared on the NES and for whatever reason Tecmo chose to port that exact same game over to the Lynx. And when I say port I don’t mean convert either, this is identical in every way. So what we have are horrible muddy graphics that are ill suited to the Lynx’s small screen, terrible music and incredibly frustrating gameplay. Touching on that last point this is definitely the worst part of this product, when you die you are sent right back to the beginning of the level! No checkpoints or save points, just lots of swearing and pressing of the off button. Please don’t be tempted by the Ninja Gaiden name and steer well clear of this horrible title, without doubt one of the worst games released for Atari’s handheld wonder machine.