Lynx 1989: Blue Lightning / Cali. Games / Zendocon / Electrocop / Chip's Challenge | GBW Gaiden 06

Game Boy wasn't the most powerful portable on the market back in the early ’90s—that was Atari's Lynx. Just what did Atari have to offer gamers in the place of international hits like Mario and Tetris? With this first Lynx-centric overview, we'll look at Nintendo's contemporary handheld competition and see what the most established name in gaming brought to the table for those who weren't content with murky green monochrome or portable platforms that could actually fit in a pocket. This first Lynx summary covers the entire 1989 launch lineup of five games: Blue Lightning, California Games, Gates of Zendocon, Electrocop, and Chip's Challenge—all developed by Epyx (the company that had designed the Lynx hardware itself) and published by Atari. Since the very beginning of Game Boy Works back in 2014, I've always intended to give air time to Nintendo's competition—if you were to hack into the GBW website database, you'd find Lynx and Game Gear releases tucked away in there, too (please do not hack into the GBW database). As we near the end of Game Boy Works 1990 and the arrival of Sega into the portable market, the Game Boy odyssey simply wouldn't be complete without an overview of what the system was competing with during its lifetime. So, Game Boy Works Gaiden will finally be expanding, as has always been intended, to encompass both Lynx and Game Gear summaries in parallel with the GB launch lineup. These extracurricular activities will show up FAR less frequently than the core episodes, as each Gaiden episode will contain three to five games apiece—and Game Boy saw many times the number of releases that its competitors did in any given year. Video Works is funded via Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/gamespite) — support the show and get access to every episode up to two weeks in advance of its YouTube debut! And be sure to check out the Retronauts podcast (http://www.retronauts.com), where I (and many others!) tackle a much wider array of classic gaming topics each week.