E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

aka: E.T. The Game
Moby ID: 8874
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Description official description

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial is a licensed adventure game, based on the movie. The adventure takes place on several screens with pits scattered about. The object of the game is to find pieces of E.T.'s phone. Once all pieces are found, E.T. calls home and the spaceship arrives to pick him up. E.T. can collect Reese's Pieces scattered around in order to regain energy which is constantly depleted with time.

The phone pieces are in some of the pits, and E.T. must jump in to get them; sometimes there's also a dead flower in the pit which provides extra points if brought back to life. Once E.T. has done his business in the pit, to get out he must levitate his way out, though he must watch out not to fall into the pit again after leaving.

Evil scientists and agents wander around the area, trying to capture E.T. and steal the parts he's carrying.

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Credits (Atari 2600 version)

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 41% (based on 16 ratings)

Players

Average score: 1.3 out of 5 (based on 129 ratings with 10 reviews)

Not very good, but definitely not the worst.

The Good
Considering that programmer Howard Scott Warshaw completed this game in about 5-6 weeks (at the time, games usually took at least 6 months), it's amazing the game was finished at all let alone as good as it is. The title screen looks quite good with the E.T. logo and drawing, and in game graphics are solid with no flickering sprites, plenty of color, and varied screens which really weren't out of line with other 1982 era 2600 games. Sound effects are ok, and include a decent rendition of the E.T. theme. With multiple skill levels and randomized locations for parts you need to find, there's some replay value.

The Bad
Adventure style games are tough to make work with just a joystick and one button; figuring the game out isn't particularly intuitive and without the instruction manual it's easy to wander about with no idea what's going on. Once you figure out how to play, the game at least makes some sense and can be completed. Unfortunately, it just doesn't hold my attention too long as I found the gameplay rather slow and unexciting. Falling down pits repeatedly is probably the most frustrating aspect, and even though it's not too hard to get out after a while it can still become tiresome. Had more time been given to the development of the game, it probably could have been made much more interesting.

The Bottom Line
This game has a reputation for being one of the worst 2600 games made, if not one of the worst for any platform. While the game isn't very good and gameplay is overall rather dull, far worse games have been made before and after this, many for the 2600; for some examples, take a look at Airlock or Skeet Shoot. Later on Active Enterprises would release 53 games that were much worse which were contained in Action 52 and Cheetahmen II. I don't think any of these and many other really bad games are as often remembered since E.T. was heavily promoted (and vastly over produced!) due to the popularity of the movie. Rumors of a significant number of copies being dumped in a landfill doesn't help it's reputation much either, which I think is usually too harsh.

Atari 2600 · by Servo (57071) · 2004

Great beer coaster.

The Good
Seriously, E.T. was actually not as bad as many people say. It was just not nearly good enough to be treated as a serious video game platform. It isn't much fun and doesn't deserve the license of the fantastic movie its based upon.

E.T. is a game where you control E.T. throughout several landscapes looking for pieces of his telephone, so that he can call home. I'm sure someone on Earth has managed to do this although rumor has it that if you actually managed to beat the game it would simply freeze (or worse).

The most impressive thing about the game was that the programmer managed to pull it off in less than two months. That probably doesn't make you want to go out and buy this old relic.



The Bad
At the time the graphics were truly state of the art and you could actually discern the shapes of buildings, trees, humans, and E.T. himself. However as of 2006, my cheap cell phone uses more advanced graphics.

E.T. was quite difficult. Most adults and children found it impossible and unrewarding. My cousin discovered how to lift E.T. out of the pits when he fell in and showed me how to do this and after that it was fun for another forty minutes ("fun" might be stretching it).

The really bad thing about this game was that it just wasn't a great platform game and could not live up to the hype Atari promised. It really should not have been given the license for the movie. It wasn't the programmer's fault as I understand he was forced to develop the title in less than two months.

The Bottom Line
Amusing piece of video game history. Worth checking out just to see what people are talking about. I definitely would not pay for it. Its probably a collectors item simply based on its mythic stigma.

Atari 2600 · by Majestic Lizard (670) · 2006

My review on the horrible E.T. video game

The Good
The title screen and the title music.

The Bad
Everything else, and the most frustrating thing about it is when I fall into a hole or when I get caught by someone, it takes FOREVER to get out because I stay in the hole no matter how hard I try! It also, of course, caused the video game crash of 1983 because of how bad the game was!

The Bottom Line
Don't get this game!

Atari 2600 · by OmegaPC777 (8240) · 2016

[ View all 10 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
The legend was true after all: buried copies found chirinea (47500) Apr 27, 2014

Trivia

Development

Howard Scott Warsaw, the programmer of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, only had six weeks from July 23, 1982 to program the game and ready it for a September 1 release date.

Movies made about the game

  • Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie was a science fiction comedy movie dealing with this game as the main focal point. The movie features a review by the Angry Video Game Nerd: (James Rolfe) of the actual game.
  • Atari: Game Over was a documentary where a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico is excavated to find out if the rumors of a mass burial of unsold video game cartridges, consoles, and computers was true. The documentary also deals with the video game crash of 1983, and features an interview with Howard Scott Warshaw.

Reception

Atari produced 5 million E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial cartridges. Most of the units that were sold were returned, and eventually Atari dumped the millions of useless copies still on hand into a New Mexico landfill.

On the 1st of December 1982, after it became clear that Atari would never sell the six million cartridges it had manufactured, executives announced that they were cutting their '82 revenue forecasts from a 50% increase over '81 levels to a meager 15%. In the end, the price of Warner (owners of Atari) stock dropped almost a third from 52 to 35. It was so bad Atari President Ray Kassar unloaded 5000 of his shares before announcing the cuts to the public.

Awards

  • FLUX
    • Issue #4 - #1 Worst Video Game of All-Time
  • Gamers Europe
    • January 2005 - Worst Game Ever Produced On Any Platform Nominee
  • GameSpy
    • December 31, 2002 - #7 on the "Top Ten Shameful Games" list ( "Lots of people bought it at first, but gradually the word spread that the gameplay consisted mainly of E.T. falling into an endless series of pits, and the game was much too frustrating for the young kids for whom it was intended. The game is sometimes accused (not altogether without justification) of single-handedly causing the "crash" of the video games market in the mid-'80s.")
  • GameTrailers
    • November 17, 2006 - #2 Worst Videogame
  • PC World
    • October 23, 2006 - #1 Worst Game of All Time ("Everyone I spoke to who singled out particular gripes mentioned the pits that the player, as E.T., fell into and would then have to slowly levitate out of, which led to horrendously monotonous game play.")

Information also contributed by Big John WV, CaptainCanuck, Scaryfun and Sciere

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E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial: Digital Companion
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Related Sites +

  • Fixing E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600
    A serious effort to analyse and correct the bugs in the game, some 30 years after the release, complete with ROM code modifications for the NTSC version.
  • Matt Chat 70
    Video interview with Howard Scott Warshaw about the development of Yars' Revenge and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 8874
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by wanax.

Additional contributors: Gerauchertes, Alaka, CubbyKatz, Patrick Bregger, Rwolf.

Game added April 13, 2003. Last modified January 30, 2024.