Programming "to the metal" is a VERY different experience and one that can be satisfying much in the same way that baking your own bread (flour, water, yeast..) can be.

Now the Gameduino abstracts a lot so maybe it's bad comparison; one is not doing opcode/cycle counting to time refresh rates of NTSC signals!

However, if you WANT to do something like that... http://nootropicdesign.com/hackvision/