ATARI CORP STARTED THE NINETIES AS IT HAD THE EIGHTIES WITH EXCITING NEW HARDWARE LAUNCHES. BUT AS JAPANESE MANUFACTURERS CORNERED THE CONSOLE MARKET AND THE PC BECAME THE DOMINANT COMPUTER FORMAT, IT BECAME A QUESTION OF WHETHER ATARI WOULD SEE OUT THE DECADE

» [Atari Lynx] The Lynx version of RoadBlasters is another impressive conversion job, courtesy of D Scott Williamson.

The Atari Lynx, along with fellow handhelds the Sega Game Gear and NEC TurboExpress, all offered superior hardware to the Game Boy, but Nintendo’s device beat them all thanks to better battery life and several other factors. “The Game Boy had a much more attractive price point, plus the popularity of the NES, and brought many big Nintendo licences to the platform,” says D Scott Williamson, who converted the Atari coinop hits STUN Runner, Toki and RoadBlasters to the Lynx. “In my opinion, the quality and depth of gameplay that Nintendo had was not matched by Atari, but we were trying very hard. I was responsible for Lynx developer support at Atari and I worked closely with the guys from Epyx to support Lynx development.”