Atari 2600 Excellence Awards Announced

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.")

Comments

NES equivilent?

[BTWR]

Now, don't get me wrong... I respect Atari, insomuch as perhaps without them we might not have the home videogame industry we have today. However, I have never enjoyed Atari as a fun system, personally. I've never been one for pretty graphics, but I remember even as a 3 year old in the 80s thinking the games were slow and ugly. For me, the first awesome system was the NES.

Is there an equivilent hacking/programming culture for the NES? That'd rule big time. I once saw an NES hack of Zelda, to create a sort of "third quest" but that's basically it. Anyone know of more?

Re:NES equivilent?

[bjb]

I think you have to realize two things that make these programs for the 2600 meaningful (besides pure nostalgia for people over 30):

• The Atari 2600 was the first widely successful system. Yes, you laugh when you see the "Degenetron" type graphics, but for those of us who were old enough to appreciate these machines when they were out, it was fantastic.
• The Atari 2600 is extremely difficult to program for. Sure, the NES appeals to people in their low-to-mid 20s because it was their first system, but it was a breeze to program for comparatively.

I guess I need to expand on that second point. Given the right tools, anyone could program something of 8-bit NES quality that looks and plays decently. However, to do something amazing on the Atari 2600 requires an in-depth knowledge of the 2600's hardware and the timing of every instruction of the 6502 processor (well, 6507). Heck, you didn't have a frame buffer to work with; you had to spend time actually drawing the pixels on the screen for EVERY refresh!

I guess you can always tell the 2600 from the NES people by a 10-year difference in age.

Re:NES equivilent?

[radimvice]

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.

Re:NES equivilent?

[ClosedSource]

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

For the Nostalgia-Challenged...

[shadowcabbit]

For those of us either too young to have played the Atari 2600's classic library or for those who just never got around to it, might I suggest picking up either a collection disc or one of those joystick-that-plugs-into-the-tv collections? Myself, I'm looking forward to the Paddle collection (as, AFAIK, no similar controller exists for a modern machine, so a collection disc would be kind of pointless).

Of course, emulation is always an option, too.

Actually(+)

[Mycroft_514]

Years ago, I hacked the hardware for 4 Atari Paddles to run off the IBM PC Joystick port. (the 15 pin one).

Add a 15 pin to USB adapter (I think Radio Shack sells them) and there you go.

I only needed 3 plugs and some wire to make the converter. I did write a test program and it worked, but never got around to doing any games. I wrote up the pin outs and released them years ago on my then BBS.

One to watch out for....

[curtisk]

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