Rampage

The Trouble with larry

Why you should cherish finding another gamer who owned Atari’s Lynx

» Atari Lynx » 1990 » Atari

If you’re new to the magazine you might not know that i have a soft spot for Atari’s Lynx. I don’t own one anymore, but I absolutely adored that colour handheld and managed to pick up a machine shortly after its launch.

That colour screen attracted me like a moth to a flame and, just like that winged creature of the night, I eventually became burned once I realised one simple fact – I had no one to play any games with. Now that’s not because I had no friends at work (I’d left school the year before the console’s release) but the few school friends I had kept in touch with all had Game Boys.

Needless to say, one of the coolest aspects of the Lynx (its multiplayer capabilities) was something I rarely got a chance to use on a regular basis.

That became even more apparent when Rampage crashed onto the system I’d always been a huge fan of the arcade game and immediately snapped it up when it was released because it featured a brand-new character: Larry, a giant rat who was exclusive to the Atari console.

Fortunately, I knew one other person with a Lynx at work, Andrew Gilbert, and he liked Rampage, too. We’d regularly catch up to play and would argue over who got to play Larry. In hindsight, it was all rather pointless. Larry was no different to George, Lizzy or Ralph when it came to his core abilities. Each characters’ movesets were identical so we should have been happy to play as any of them. Larry was cool, though. Larry was the reason we’d spent all that extra cash when we could have settled for the Master System version (which is also excellent) and we were going to get our money’s worth, no matter how many times we might bicker about it.

I’ve long since lost touch with Andrew, but I often think of those gaming sessions we shared with fond memories. Back then finding another Lynx owner was rarer than winning the lottery, so occasionally you’d let the Andrews of the world play as Larry, because you never knew when you’d find someone to take their place.