Megalextoria

Hydra, Atari Lynx.

http://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/177157802012/vgjunk-hydra-atari-lynx

Hydra was originally an arcade game developed by Atari. It was also ported to the Atari Lynx which is the only home port of this game for a video game system. There were also a few home computer ports (Commodore 64, Amiga and Atari ST among others) but the Lynx was the only video game system, handheld or otherwise, that Hydra was developed for.

The premise of Hydra is that you are trying to prevent thieves from stealing parts to a secret weapon hidden in artifiacts in museums and other places. All of this is just an excuse to race a boat around and blow stuff up of course. Those who have played Roadblasters will find this game quite familiar. This is really just an updated version of Roadblasters on the water. Personally, I loved Roadblasters.

The Atari Lynx version of the game got somewhat mixed reviews. However, chances are that if you like Roadblasters then you will like this game as well. In addition, it’s the only way to play on a handheld and the easiest to find a legitimate copy of unless you want to track down one of the computer versions or an arcade machine. Of course, there is always the emulation route it which case you may as well play the arcade version.

The arcade original was released in 1990 and the Lynx port followed in 1992. Other than the home computer versions mentioned above, there are no other ports or remakes. Atari has published numerous game compilations over the years but none have included Hydra as far as I know.