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Atari 2600 Excellence Awards Announced

Posted by simoniker on from the this-is-not-1982 dept.

Thanks to AtariAge for its 2003 Stan's Atari Excellence Awards, commemorating "fascinating advancements in Homebrews, Hacks, Programming Technology, [and] Hardware" for the Atari 2600 in the last year. Highlights include Hack Of The Years for Adventure Plus ("an incredible example of taking a game you know by heart and giving it new life"), and Homebrew Of The Year for Star Fire ("an exceptional port that actually improves on its classic predecessor.")

3 of 19 comments (clear)

  1. One to watch out for.... by curtisk · · Score: 4, Informative
    if you are into the whole retro gaming scene is the excellent looking (and so far, playing) Adventure 2 for the Atari 5200. Where the 2600 is a bit more on the difficulty curve to program, the 5200 is nice that it is basically the same as the Atari 800 computer, so programming is a bit easier allowing the developers to push it further

    If you happened to visit the recent Philly Classic you'd know that there is a tsunami of homebrew activity on the 2600, which is both good and bad IMHO as some titles feel and play like shovelware

    --

    Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!

  2. Re:NES equivilent? by radimvice · · Score: 5, Informative

    Is there an equivilent hacking/programming culture for the NES? That'd rule big time.

    Indeed there is. The NES hacking community has done amazing things with classic games such as Metroid and the Mario, Zelda and Megaman series. The community has evolved from simple graphics and text hacking to recreating entirely new challenging levels, intricate assembly code modifications (ever wanted to play Megaman in time-attack mode, or Mario 3 with a day/night system?), and there are even some interesting homebrewn games in development. Check out The Challenge Games Community for a good starting place. Be sure to check out Mario Adventure and Zelda Challenge as two good examples of high-quality hacks.

    There's also an older community dedicated to producing translations of Japanese console games that do similarly intense hacks to NES games, but with a more practical objective. The Whirlpool is a good starting point here. Check out FFII,III,IV (hard type),V, Star Ocean, Seiken Densetsu 3, Tales of Phantasia and Dragon Quest V,VI for some of the completed translations of high-profile games.

  3. Re:NES equivilent? by ClosedSource · · Score: 2, Informative

    I might add that many 2600 developers were working from reverse-engineered specs so that made it even more difficult.