|
 Once upon a time, in the
beginning of the portable system wars, Atari dared challenge
Nintendo. The system was in color, it had a larger, backlit screen,
and it could "flip" to accomodate southpaws. Its main flaws,
however, were that it ate batteries like pretzels, and it was too
heavy. What killed it was its lack of third-party software and
general incompetence on the part of Atari, as well as a dearth of
RPGs and fighting games. A loyal community still exists, and many
good games were made; just not as many as could have been. One of
those games was Klax.
The game involved holding the Lynx sideways (feel
free to groan in 3... 2... 1...) as the tiles came down a ramp. You
had to move a catcher to grab the tiles and drop them into a 5x5
chamber. To clear them out, you had to get a "Klax" by aligning
three or more tiles of the same color horizontally, vertically or
diagonally. Each wave got progressive harder as the goals got more
difficult and the tiles faster. Some levels involve getting a
certain number of Klaxes, a certain number of points, surviving a
certain amount of tiles, etc. If you fill up the area, or drop a
certain number of tiles, it's all over.
The graphics are great considering that Klax was
pretty much a launch title for the star-crossed unit. The gameplay
works better than you'd think, and there's actual spoken dialogue.
It sort of serves as an early tech demo of the system, which could
do stuff that hadn't been done at that point (the Genesis and SNES
were only then coming out, I believe). It's easily one of the
reasons to get a Lynx, along with such things as a portable Rygar
and Ninja Gaiden III. Since I come from a family of unrepentant
Tetriholics, I give this game an easy 10. Get into this game, and
you may agree...
| ZAKU |
| Super Fighter
Team/Penguinet |
| Shooter |
|
 
Here's the good news... Zaku is
the best shooter on the Atari Lynx. Here's the bad
news... it's not in esteemed company. Nearly every one
of the small handful of shoot 'em ups on the system missed
the bullseye because they turned their backs on the
target. The games were designed by
American programmers who didn't have a clue what made the
genre work, and it shows in the dull, repetitive stage layouts
of Gates of Zendocon and the ghastly visuals in Zarlor
Mercenary. The Lynx hardware didn't do these sorry
shmups any favors, as its coarse resolution left the
player precious little room to dodge incoming bullets.
The best Lynx owners could hope for was Telegames' conversion
of Raiden, and that came years after the system was
discontinued by Atari!
Fortunately for those gamers who
still carry a torch for the once-cutting edge handheld,
homebrew designer Osman Celimli has raised the bar for Lynx
shooters considerably with Zaku. The
game takes most of its inspiration from the
Turbografx-16 release Air Zonk, but heavily seasons the recipe
with surreal, nerd-centric humor. On your way to
recovering five stolen floppy discs, you'll clash
with forgotten video game mascots, white-collar fish with
fin-mounted lasers, and a
flying toaster that looks like it escaped from a Junior/Senior
music video. Even the title character reflects the
game's merger of East and West; a scrawny mix of
Sonic the Hedgehog and the tightly-wound chihuahua from Ren
and Stimpy.
Much like Air Zonk (and much
unlike other shooters on the Lynx), Zaku makes the
most of its console with bright, rich colors, as much detail
as that tiny screen can hold, and impressive special
effects. Parallax scrolling lends depth to the
playfields, fiery explosions consume fallen foes, and the
system's hardware scaling gets a constant workout, with Zaku
unleashing massive charge shots and rocketing off into
the horizon after some boss battles. The game plants a
flag on the peak of Lynx graphics, bested only by Atari's fantastic arcade
translations. On the other hand, the sound makes
more modest demands of the system's hardware, with primitive
two channel music that's routinely drowned out by
the high-pitched chirp of gunfire and explosions that
will dazzle your eyes more than your ears.
That brings us to the gameplay,
which is solid. Unfortunately, the shooter
is a genre that demands more than mere
competence, and there are several issues which betray
Zaku's Western roots and shoestring budget. The level designs tend to be repetitive
and the enemy patterns simplistic, a far cry from the
technical mastery of even early Japanese shooters like
Gradius. The more inspired moments are reserved for the
bosses, but they absorb damage like a sponge, making the
battles frustratingly long and redundant.
Sure, they're usually pretty amusing, but those
sight gags won't seem nearly as clever after you've pumped
lead into them for a minute and a half.
The power-up system hurts the
game's appeal as well. Actually, that's the problem...
there are no power-ups. You can launch charge
shots that cut cleanly through minor enemies and do
slightly more damage than usual to the large ones, but Zaku's
base weapon will never be more than a peashooter, and you
can't team up with partners to double your firepower.
Some of Air Zonk's best moments came from merging with friends
and transforming into zany hybrids! Without that
feature or a similarly brilliant one to take its place, Zaku
feels unambitious, like the student who could have
strived for high marks but settled for a B instead.
So that's exactly what Zaku will
get. It's unquestionably the best game of its kind on
the shooter-starved Lynx library, but it's still a little
disappointing that Osman didn't go for the gold and make Zaku
one of the best Lynx games, period. Then again,
even silver is precious in a
world of aluminum
foil... | |
|
ATARI LYNX
| CPU |
65SC02 |
| MHz |
4MHz |
| RAM |
64K |
| Media |
cart, 2MB
max |
| Sound |
4 channel |
| Gfx |
Suzy CMOS |
| Res |
160x102 |
| Color |
16 of 4096 |
| Sprite |
128 max |
| Polys |
N/A |
Desert
Strike
Klax
Roadblasters
Toki
Xybots
Basketbrawl
Dirty
Larry
Gordo 106
Ms. Pac-Man
Zarlor Mercenary | |
