1mo ago

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial - Bad Game Hall of Fame

www.badgamehalloffame.com E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial - Bad Game Hall of Fame

"In Defense of E.T. on Atari." In our first article, we attempt to clear up the myriad misconceptions that surround the infamous 1982 release, and determine who is truly to blame for Atari's sad fate.

It's a good game! It's misunderstood!

Or so I remembered reading many years ago (almost ten, as it happens).

When trying to find this article, I couldn't do it because search is incredibly broken now, but with a little help I found it. So here it is.

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The E.T. game being "the worst game" thing is all myth. It was a tremendous flop, but it had nothing to do with game quality. I'd say that 90% of Atari 2600 games were objectively bad and E.T. was amongst the 10% of good ones. They over estimated demand, overhyped it, and sold it during the holidays, which means extended and relaxed return policies. That resulted in too many units manufactured and too many units returned. Thus the landfill full of cartridges.
Source: I was one of the kids that got it for Christmas. It was fine, but wenty minutes later, I was back to Yar's Revenge.
- I disagree. It was not fine, it was crappy game that was probably most kids first licensed home video game for the biggest movie of the year. Everyone hated it. There is a reason that I somehow ended up with multiple copies of the games. Friends actually left them at my house and no one would admit to the extra game being theirs!
  That being said, I don't think it is the worst game of all time. At most, it is the worst game on the 2600 and even that is a stretch. I'd argue Superman 64 for the N64 is a worse game by all measures.
  
  I'd argue Superman 64 for the N64 is a worse game by all measures.
  I've spent some unfortunate time with both, and can confirm. Superman 64 is worse by a pretty large margin.
  E.T. is genuinely playable, after a needlessly awful learning curve. Superman 64 still continues to suck even for (shudder) players who have put in the necessary time to learn to play it.
  Edit: As others have said before: E.T. is a decent game, it's just a lousy choice for an E.T. tie-in.
  Fans of a beloved highly polished film masterpiece about gentle communication and wide eyed exploration discovered the Atari game was a nearly unfinished punishing high stress race against a merciless clock - which frequently abruptly ended any aspiration a player had of discovering anything beyond the same pit they fell into many times before.
- Well, the landfill isn't just ET carts. The lack of quality was very much the problem, and yeah it extended across the entire ecosystem for Atari because they let shovelware run rampant when there wasn't sufficient review platforms/magazines (at least in tbe US where the crash occurred).
  This is partly how Nintendo was able to rise so quickly: The Nintendo Seal of Approval and how to get licenced to make games for their system was a huge deal to QA at the time.
- I just finished the audiobook from the guy who made the game. He made that game in 5 weeks. He also created one of the most profitable games as well. He has games on both ends of the spectrum. Should read his novel. Once Upon a Atari.

Reminds me of this attempt at fixing some of the issues with ET
http://www.neocomputer.org/projects/et/
I think the most interesting fix is the perspective issue/collision detection problem with the pits.

The article is really well written, if you haven’t enjoyed it yet you should. Maybe in ten years you’ll be thinking about it and trying to find it again.

Still have 3 copies ha, who doesn't

ET was only slightly different in game play from what is argued to be the BEST game on the Atari 2600, Indiana Jones. It had some annoying things (the pits mostly) but was otherwise the same exact game as something people actually liked. It's failure is actually kinda weird.
- No sane person thinks that Indiana Jones is the best game on the Atari 2600. It was a confusing mess of a game that no one understood. Funny enough, I still have both E.T. and Indiana Jones carts and they still work. You can't kill pure evil.
  
  It wasn't so bad if you were a young kid in the 80s. Least my experience. Like what, I supposed to kill the shield of yars revenge again? Well that was more fun but still, needed variety.
  That said would I play it again? Fuck no. Course I wouldn't frost my hair tips again either, or willingly wear neon either.
- I had fun playing it in the mid 80s but I didn't have a ton of games at the time either. Have a fond memory of it overall (maybe because I liked the movie), and still enjoying video games these days. Don't think I played the Indiana Jones one to compare though.
  
  I played E.T. relatively recently to remind myself what the fuss was about.
  The game plays fine (with average Atari bugginess).
  It just stands out as an early huge miss for a movie tie in. Almost nothing about the game feels like the movie, or is particularly anything a fan of the movie would seem likely to enjoy.
  I say "almost" because the exploring kind of fits. The same exploring that is constantly frustratingly interrupted by pit falls.
  It's really not that bad of a game, though.
- Except for not. E.T. had very bad bugs - the pits were so unmanageable. You would fall in without being near them. You spent half the game floating your way out of them only to fall in again. Biggest trash heap ever made.

It was a good game. You just needed to know how to play it. I would beat it routinely as a kid.

21 comments