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

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.