Roadblasters
PURE PALM POWER
Darran explains why this excellent Lynx conversion was always a firm favourite
» ATARI LYNX » 1990 » ATARI CORPORATION
I absolutely adored Atari’s Lynx. I’d set my heart on it from the moment it was announced and while it was far from perfect – a stupidly short battery life, cumbersome size and lack of original games – I simply didn’t care. I loved arcade games and the Lynx allowed me to play plenty of arcade classics in the palm of my hand. Sure, I could have purchased a Game Boy or a Game
Gear (I would eventually buy both much later) but the Lynx was important to me because it basically had the games I wanted to play and that’s an important consideration for any console purchase, handheld or otherwise.
For the most part, Atari’s machine never disappointed me until it started to become painfully obvious that it didn’t have the third-party support that was promised. I lost count of the times I would walk to my local computer shop, and eagerly ask about new Lynx games, only to be told that they had been delayed again. While things were rough in later years it was a fantastic thing to be a Lynx owner in the early days of the console’s life. Arcade conversions were plenty and often to a very high standard. Indeed, some of them even put the Amiga and Atari ST versions to shame.
My favourite game from that period was the excellent Roadblasters, which had been coded by the talented D Scott Williamson and was absolutely magnificent (he was also the mastermind behind the Lynx ports of Toki and STUN Runner). Roadblasters was a truly sensational version of the arcade game and felt incredibly authentic, due to Williamson having access to the source code of the original arcade game, which allowed him to create such an authentic replication of it. Granted, there were no additional extras to crow to your friends about, but it didn’t matter as Roadblasters offered a tremendously satisfying arcade-like experience that the other handhelds of the time simply couldn’t match. I no longer own a Lynx collection, but I’d imagine that will change with the release of the Analogue Pocket. If I do start collecting for Atari’s system again, then Roadblasters will be one of the first games I pick up.