Venture II (hack?)

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I just found Venture II in the games database, but I think this is a (very experienced, but still is a) hack on the original Venture ROM and therefore should be in the hacks section.

 

Please, correct me if I'm wrong.

 

BTW: When will the compressed avatars be online?

[ubersaurus]

It can't really be considered a hack, since it was made in cart format, outside of Hozer, for the atari 2600. It's pretty much on par with the pirate hacks in that respect. Still a great game though

[Albert]

I haven't compared the two versions to determine if Venture II is just a hack of the original Venture. It does appear that way, looking from the screenshots for each game. Perhaps Tim Snider can comment?

 

Even if Venture II is just a hack, I believe that since Tim went through all the trouble to produce a label, a wonderful manual and rather unique packaging that it deserves its place in the rarity guide as a Homebrew title. Certainly people consider it a collectible since a copy of Venture II fetched $200 at the CGE auction!!

 

..Al

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Then, maybe you should improve your definition of a hack.

 

For me as a non collector, just playing games with an emulator and writing my own games, the subtile differences between hacks and non hacks a hard to understand.

 

Does it depend on the package? Then Thrust and some other original homebrews would be a hack too.

Does it depend on the contents? Then a lot of pirates (and maybe Venture II) are hacks.

Does it count, if it's a collectors item? So a very rare hack, wouldn't be a hack.

If it's a combination of all, how is it defined?

 

I always thought everything that only patched (even with some disassembling involved) an existing ROM is a hack. It's a totally different task to write a new game form scratch, than "just" taking an existing game and modifying it. And there is also a big difference between the needed skills to do a very nice artwork and package (I can't ) or to write a game for the 2600 (I can ).

 

I've disassembled some Activison games and I could very easy change i.E. the graphics, mazes, sounds and some of the gameplay rules etc. of Pitfall!. That would still be a hack for me, because I didn't write the game, I just modified (= hacked) it.

 

So the rules are not clear (to me?).

 

Maybe we just need an additional category. The rarity from the collectors point of view and a new category for original or pirated / hacked / patched... game.