Halo--Atari 2600 Style

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Chances are that made somebody choke on their corn flakes, so a bit of explanation is in order. See, out in Las Vegas, there was a trade show devoted to games of the past called the Classic Gaming Expo, and while that one was on, former Microsoft VP Ed Fries, who’s got a long history in the industry, showed off a project of his own–Halo, for the Atari 2600.

No, this isn’t a copyright suit waiting to happen, this is all about a guy who used to work on classic games who decided to make an exhibition version of one of the biggest game franchises of the 21st century ahead of its newest release.

Fries, you see, originally got his start programming for the Atari 800 back in the eighties. And since leaving the company, he put together what he calls Halo 2600, a version of Halo for the Atari Video Computer System. You can see the title screen above, and the whole thing is made even more interesting by the knowledge that it requires a whopping 4K of memory to store. A level involving a drivable Warthog was scrapped due to size constraints.

The gameplay is interesting if a bit confused, so you may want to give it a shot.