Mario Bros. Clone Released For Atari 2600 90
YokimaSun writes "The world of Homebrew Coding never ceases to amaze, even on an old system like the Atari 2600 a coder over at the Atariage forums has released a clone of the original Nes game Super Mario Bros with video, which has the first level from the classic game and eventually will have the first four worlds. Equally as impressive is this 3D Mario game written for the Sega Saturn."
Re:Great, now I feel old. (Score:4, Insightful)
A side-scrolling game on a console that only has 128 bytes of RAM is impressive.
Re:Simply amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
Click the link, and you get a picture of a game that looks pretty crappy by Saturn standards. Click the other link and you get a picture of a game that looks amazing by 2600 standards.
Prevailing wisdom was that an SMB1 clone would not be possible on the 2600. Now it's been done. That's amazing. A 3d SMB is well within the capabilities of the Saturn, and is a worthy hobby project, but not in the same league at all. The Saturn game was written in BASIC, the 2600 game was written in assembly.
Re:Simply amazing (Score:4, Insightful)
"Clone" is a pretty inclusive term in this context. When a game became popular, lots of companies would try to capitalize on the fad by making a similar game. Hence you get "pacman clones" like Ladybug or KC Munchkin, or "Doom clones" like Dark Forces or Duke 3d. In that context, this is clearly a SMB clone. It's worth noting that no other side scrolling platformers exist on the 2600.
Re:Great, now I feel old. (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. Side-scrolling on the 2600 is not easy.
What is so astonishing here is that the developer used batari Basic and not straight 6502 assembly.
Re:Mario Bros (Score:4, Insightful)
It gets worse; the source thread [dcemu.co.uk] refers to it as "Super Mario World" which itself is completely different.