[theme music]
[fizz, sip]
Aahhh!
[typing]
You know, one of the best things about collecting and playing retro games
is often discovering for the first time a hidden gem
from 20 or 30 years ago.
And for the Atari 2600, that is especially true.
There were just hundreds and hundreds of games
made by all kinds of people and in all kinds of genres,
some of which have completely disappeared.
But another great thing about retro gaming is the homebrew scene.
Now, homebrew has been around since... well,
the 2600 has been around, really.
But in 2010, it was really brought more into the mainstream light
with the release of Halo 2600,
released by AtariAge at the 2010 Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas.
As you can see, it actually comes on a real 2600 cartridge.
The game was developed by Ed Fries,
who is the former Vice-President of Game Publishing at Microsoft,
and as such was definitely involved with Bungie Studios.
Being inspired by programming stories of the 2600,
he got to work on his own game,
which ended up being this: Halo 2600.
And yes, it does have blessings from Bungie to exist.
I got mine on the second or third production run
by contacting Al at AtariAge.
I think I paid about $20 for it,
which, when you consider it comes on a real cartridge, isn't that bad.
All you need is a real 2600, a 7800,
or something that will play VCS cartridges.
And of course, you could just play it on an emulator like Stella for free.
The game starts off with a cool little title screen
of the halo, I suppose,
and an Atari 2600 version of the Halo theme.
[Atari version of Halo theme]
You can press the joystick button at any time
and you will take control of Master Chief.
And the game starts with you outside and with no weapons.
Walk Master Chief upwards to the next screen
using his little Fred Flintstone legs
and grab the gun.
The next screen over, you'll see some kind of an enemy –
I assume a grunt or something, I really don't know –
and you can press the Fire button to shoot directly forward.
One hit will kill pretty much anything,
so all you really have to do is press Fire
and dodge any shots coming your way.
The gameplay, to me, is most reminiscent of...
I guess games like Berzerk
and Adventure on the 2600.
Adventure in the sense that each screen
is kind of part of a larger, overall map,
and Berzerk in the sense that you have things firing at you
and you have to fire back at them, avoiding shots and stuff like that.
Although, you can't fire at an angle,
so that does kind of limit the gameplay a bit.
Your enemies can, though.
You have a couple of lives, and once they're gone, you're dead.
Grab the key in the first area
and you will open the door to the second area:
a Covenant base,
complete with Covenant holiday decor
and new Elite enemies.
So it's a new area, but it's the same exact thing.
Just don't get killed.
Shoot things if you want to.
There's no score, so I guess you really don't have to kill them.
Grab another gun, grab a shield,
go outside and kill more stuff.
Or don't.
Basically, you're just walking through a really simple maze
and you don't really have to do anything.
So in that sense, the gameplay is extremely limited.
I guess you're supposed to shoot stuff.
It does help, but in theory,
I guess you could just get through the entire thing without having to at all.
The last aspects of gameplay that I noticed
are some boots to pick up
allowing you to walk faster,
and the icy areas,
where you will keep moving, even if you stop moving.
You make your way through the icy area, then back inside,
and then to the final boss.
The only boss.
The Covenant ship.
And that's it. That's the game.
All 64 screens are over.
Really, there's just not much to Halo 2600.
Mostly, it's just got its attention because of the name that's attached to it.
It's a Halo game outside of the Xbox
and Bungie was okay with it. I mean, that's kind of a big deal.
But really, as far as homebrews go, it's pretty weak.
I've seen much, much better homebrew games.
I guess as far as this style goes,
I just prefer games like Berzerk instead.
It's not bad, it's well made.
The controls work, everything is solid, all that good stuff.
There's just not much to it.
Yes, it's intense, but once you get through it once,
why would you want to go back?
Basically just run through a series of mazey levels,
collect some guns, shoot some aliens,
and then shoot the last alien and the game's over.
Which I guess if you really think about it,
that's pretty much all Halo is when you boil it right down to the basics.
Except that this is over in about 15 minutes.
Whatever the case, it's an interesting curiosity
and I'm happy to have it in my collection.
Especially because of the stares that it gets,
like, is this a real cartridge?
Can you actually play that?
Well, yes you can.
It's Halo 2600,
one of the highest-profile homebrew games in recent years.
And even though there's not much to it,
it's at least worth giving it a shot online.