If you fancy a retro gaming blast from the past, then you need the best Atari Lynx emulators of all time in your life.
The Atari Lynx didn’t even make a million sales during its life. It should have been one of the greats; the first handheld with a backlit screen that could be used by both left and right-handed players…
… what went wrong?
Still, as always with commercial failures, now everyone wants to get their hands on one. The problem is that there just aren’t enough to go around!
That’s where the best Atari Lynx emulators come in, giving gamers around the world a chance to find out what they were missing out on for all those years or simply just relive the good old days on a console that they should never have sold.
We’ve picked the 5 best emulators on the internet for you to download and get cracking with playing some Atari Lynx games right away.
Check them out below, and happy gaming!
1. RetroArch
- Open Source
- Multiple Platforms
RetroArch is the best Atari Lynx Emulator; it wins hands down every time.
To be honest, RetroArch is one of my favourite emulators for any old console. It does exactly what it says on the tin, even though the emulator at Number 3 does the same while looking infinitely cooler.
So, RetroArch. This emulator is essentially the mother of all emulators. It doesn’t just do the Atari Lynx; it does every Atari console and more besides, using cores to recreate the innards of all your favourite machines.
What are cores, I hear you cry?
Well, it’s a different kind of core to what you leave over after eating an apple. Essentially its a digital recreation of all the chips and wires that make the SNES or the Commodore 64, or in this case the Atari Lynx, tick.
RetroArch uses a Libretro core for it’s Lynx emulation and works on pretty much any machine, old or new. It’s simple to use and a trusty program!
2. MAME
- Open Source
- Multiple Platforms
Talking about simple-to-use programs, MAME is up there with the best of them and also provides great results no matter the machine it’s running on.
Contrary to popular belief, MAME isn’t just what happens when you jump into a Lion’s den unannounced…
… well I mean it does happen, but that’s mame with an ‘im’.
MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, and like RetroArch above, it’s good at emulating tonnes of old machines and arcade games.
The concept was designed by one of my own fellow Italians, Nicola Salmoria. Created primarily as a research tool, this emulator perfectly recreates arcade machines so that people can study how they work.
It also allows us to play all of the best arcade games and keeps them alive for younger generations, though I guess that’s just a happy little accident…
3. OpenEmu
- Open Source
- MacOS, Windows, Android
Next up on our list of the best Atari Lynx emulators is possibly the coolest-looking emulator of all time; OpenEmu.
If you love nicely set-out programs and consider a day out in a stationary shop to be the perfect date, then this emulator is going to fill you with pure joy. It’s basically the iTunes of emulation and one of the best emulators for Mac users.
We’re talking the kind of thing that you might see on modern-day Ron Burgundy’s laptop; wood effect panels, easy-to-navigate menus, and simple controller set-up menus.
OpenEmu uses cores like RetroArch, so it’s also a bit of a ‘jack of all trades’. In this case, OpenEmu uses Mednafen as its core, a reliable emulator that produces slick results every time,
Listen, if you’re a Mac user, then you won’t ever need another program again. Do yourself a favour and download this beast today; you’ll thank me for it later.
4. Argon
- Closed App
- Android
If you’re looking for a cracking handheld option for an Atari Lynx emulator, then you can’t go wrong with Argon.
In fact, Argon is a bit of a one-stop shop for all of your Atari consoles, focusing on everyone from the 2600 to the Lynx and even onto 80s cartridge consoles like the NES.
This downloadable app from the Google Play Store is simple to use and also comes with some changeable parameters to customise your gaming experience.
It’s not the most advanced emulator of all time, but it does the job and comes with a nice-looking games library to view all of your ROMs in one place.
5. Handy
- Open Source
- Windows, Mac OSX
Handy by name, handy by nature; this emulator is used by many for Windows emulation especially, but also for getting Atari Lynx games on other modded handhelds.
We’re talking Handy variants for PSP, Vita, 3DS, and Wii… not that we condone doing any of that of course, it’s just scientifically interesting…
Bringing up a Lynx on the screen for Windows users, gamers can see the console in all its glory and play all their favourite retro games on their laptop or work computer without getting caught...
Hey, that’s basically the main reason we all use emulators, right? (Don’t tell Brandon I’ve been playing Pac-Man the entire time instead of concentrating on this article).
