Some people are the masters of their instruments. For Rush’s Neal Peart, it was the drums, for Slash, it was the guitar. For John Champeau, it’s the Atari 2600. He’s coaxed games out of this system that just shouldn’t be possible, whether it’s a port of Galaga that’s better than the Atari 7800 version, or a conversion of Wizard of Wor that measures up to ports on more powerful systems.

His impossible 2600 arcade port d’jour is Tutankham, the Konami title also known in some territories as Horror Maze. (Stupid name, I say. Did the estate of Tutankham sue over the name rights, like what Edgar Rice Burroughs’ kids did with Jungle King?)

Tutankham actually had been brought to the Atari 2600 by Parker Bros decades earlier, but like most Parker Bros arcade conversions, it was a pretty sorry affair, bearing only the faintest resemblance to the original. The port by Champ Games is much closer to the genuine article; still a little rough around the edges, but readily recognizable as Tutankham.

There are even alternate control schemes to get around the single button joysticks of the Atari 2600. Use a Genesis controller instead and you can fire left or right with separate buttons. Heck, you can take it one step further and play the game with TWO joysticks, giving it more of a Smash TV feel.

Anyway. The game’s available on John Champeau’s web site, Champ Games. If that name sounds familiar, this guy used to make a handful of arcade ports for MS-DOS computers, way back in the 1990s. Those games were already impressive, but what Champeau is doing with the ancient Atari 2600 is nothing short of spectacular. It’s like making a stone wheel break the sound barrier.