Upon release, the game was generally well-received, and was selected for inclusion in a Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibit.

[2] The player uses the joystick to control the character of Master Chief, the protagonist of the Halo video games, as he makes his way through 64 screens, divided into four zones: outdoors, Covenant base, ice world, and a final boss area.

[3] Despite having been released in 1977 and ending production in 1992,[11] the Atari 2600 retained a dedicated hobbyist industry who still bought and played classic games.

[12] Fries later stated that making the game taught him that constraint is sometimes a fuel for creativity,[13] comparing the process of adapting Halo to the effort in turning a novel into a poem or haiku.

Fries pointed to other artists' work such as Bach's fugues or elaborate origami as examples of deliberately setting constraints to create something more interesting.

It was one of four new Atari 2600 titles released by AtariAge at the 2010 Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, along with Duck Attack!, K.O.

[15][21] Kotaku's Owen Good and Destructoid's Conrad Zimmerman considered it an entertaining diversion,[1][4] while 1UP.com called it a "technical marvel" for condensing Halo's core to such a small size and pushing the 2600 to its limits.

[22] The gameplay was called "rough" but "amazing" by John Biggs of TechCrunch, who cited the immense size constraints involved in creating the game.

Club, noted the incongruity of seeing a "modern blockbuster" transformed into devolved version on the 2600's "aesthetically abrasive" hardware.