Playing a bunch of Atari Lynx games was not on my itinerary for the month. And yet I found myself fitting in developer Imagine Software and publisher Pixel Games’ curated collection of titles from the handheld of yore in ‘The Epyx Collection: Handheld’. Dropped onto Xbox Series consoles and Windows PCs (Play Anywhere supported!) earlier in the month, the Epyx Collection brings about seven curated titles from the former game developer and publisher of the same name.
If you’re not familiar with the Atari Lynx (and no mockery from me, it’s old enough to be a father of two in a proper economy) it is a rather impressive handheld device from the hardware maker of yore that featured a first-ever LCD panel with eight-squared the RAM of the Game Boy and powered by a variant of the MOS 6501. It’s one heck of a kit and the games it can play are quite impressive for its time (especially considering this is a battery-powered device)—but of course, I think this Epyx Collection is best considered a solid time capsule of a select portion of the Lynx’s game library. Not all the games in this collection are very fun (some are outright awful), but some managed to surprise me and the collection software that this is all wrapped around in is quite solid.
The Epyx Collection tosses players into an 80s-themed retro-futuristic menu right off the bat, lovely chiptune funk playing in the back, with each of the seven games listed as boxes on a 3D carousel. Here, you can look at the boxes, examining them in crystal-clear quality that’d be difficult to do these days as the boxes said games were printed on have long since yellowed out. You can even read the manuals and admire slash fall into a bit of a nostalgic loop with some of the fun writing that can be found in them. The collection also lets you rewind games and save across multiple save slots bespoke for each entry. Really, this is a very nice collection, perhaps too nice for the games you can find in it:
- Blue Lightning – A 2.5D aeroplane shooter that is impressive but runs rather poorly and feels clumsy to play to boot.
- California Games – A game about taking on multiple sports and aiming for the highest score, surfing included! This one gets old pretty quickly.
- Electrocop – This one is quite cool. Players will take on the Electrocop as they make their way through 2.5D levels, lining themselves up to shoot enemies that pop in from left to right.
- Gates of Zendocon – A fun side-scrolling shooter that goes on and on.
- Todd’s Adventures in Slime World – A surprisingly fun platformer that has you exploring a dangerous planet while aiming for the highest score.
- Zarlor Mercenary – A crappy shoot ’em up with a tick rate that’d make RuneScape blush.
- Chip’s Challenge – A fun puzzler that’s been ported to everything under the sun, even the Lynx!
I’ll be frank: most of these games aren’t quite all that. I don’t believe that games “age” perse—a good game withstands the test of time, even if mechanics have largely been streamlined as time goes on. Something players will likely notice with all these games is that their playing fields are all very tiny. For many games, like Zarlor Mercenary, you’ll find yourself battling enemies who are coming at you at a relatively fast pace all the while the widescreen view with the camera pushed onto your ship makes fighting off baddies a major pain in the butt. Don’t even get me started on the framerate, wobbling at what must be 15-20 units at any given time.
Every game in this collection suffers from both performance issues and the lack of screen real estate, which is very noticeable on a big screen. The ROG Ally came in clutch for me here (the game is Play Anywhere!) as I could better situate the available headroom on a small screen. But even then, said lack of visibility means that it’s very likely that you’ll die from something that comes at you offscreen giving you little time to prepare. All though interestingly enough, one game in this collection actually took advantage of this inherent weakness and came off to be one of my favourites: Todd’s Adventures in Slime World.
In Todd’s game, players navigate through several levels of varying complexity as they hop, jump, collect upgrades, and shoot at alien creatures. The zoomed-in focus is actually used to the game’s advantage here as players have multiple ways to position Todd—be it jumping towards ledges or hanging from them—to best take on a level and the enemies that populate it. This was a highlight title for me as level design was interesting and, instead of prioritising a life system like most 2D platformers, the player instead has to worry about staying alive to keep their current score. Mix in a cool soundtrack and solid visuals and there’s a seriously fun Lynx game right here.
I wasn’t as gung-ho about all the titles as I was with Todd’s Adventures, but I still found some fun trying to get a high score in the likes of ‘California Games’ and working my way through ‘Gates of Zendocon’. ‘Chip’s Challenge’ definitely took more time from me than I expected, with it being a simple yet fun game with good tutorials. I’ll be honest, I’m blown away that many of these games can run on a handheld from the early 90s. I do appreciate Pixel Games’ restoration of these games and making them more readily available on consoles and PC, even if a lot of the titles on here are a bit of a stinker. But I have to admit, I am incredibly impressed with the visuals on many of these games—for a handheld from ’89 that renders the kinds of colour depth found in California Games blows my mind.
Really, this is purely a time capsule that plays really well on the go, perfect for anyone who owned a Lynx and folks who love retro games. The collection’s titles run accurately and bonus functions like rewind and save states along with digitised versions of their box arts and manuals make The Epyx Collection: Handheld worth a look. ∎
The Epyx Collection: Handheld
Played on
Windows 11 PC
PROS
- Collection and its features are well-done.
- Titles run accurate to their original hardware.
- Some fun game like Todd's Adventures.
CONS
- Some of these games are... Not very good.
