E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

The Good
30 years ago, the Atari 2600 was about to go up in smoke and the company has faced terrible stiff competition against their rivals Nintendo, Commodore, Colecovision, and Sega. With the 2nd Generation winding down, Atari made one last disappearing trick and that's releasing the first movie-licensed game to be released on the 2600. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. A video game that's so bad, no one ever wanted to pay good money and play an alien who wants to phone home. And so it began, the video game crash that is still remembered this year and just as you know, Atari is D.O.A. And I saw an X-Play episode way back where Adam and Morgan are trying to figure after what happened where truckloads of millions of unsold copies of both Pac-Man and E.T. were buried in a landfill in Alamagordo, New Mexico.

The Bad
The reason why E.T. was a big failure for the Atari 2600 was that the controls were broken, the music is terrible, and I certainly don't know what the hell happened to the company that spawned millions of fans jumped up and played the original Pong way back since the birth of arcades in the late '70s. I mean, what's in the future for Atari these days? No new games, no employees, no fanbase, things were never looking good if you're still stuck in 1983.

The Bottom Line
Many of video game critics were still questioning what really did happened after the crash. I would really hope to see an Oscar-worthy documentary sometime in the future and find out some evidence and new clues that might've forced Atari to run out of business as of their bankruptcy announcement last January and what is the future behind current and future next-gen consoles. E.T. is still one of the worst movie-licensed games of all time, but it will soon be remembered. September 26, 1983, the crash that crumbled the gaming market.

The Good
This game was great because, as an 11 year old boy, I was able to win. I played this game after having just seen E.T. What I liked was the way I was able to get a feel for the pattern of the world. I knew which way to leave each screen, where each direction would take me. I was good at escaping the villain who kept coming and trying to get me. Most of all, I like the way I was able to learn what to do, by trial and error. The graphics weren't great, but consider the era and the game machine and my age. I was satisfied.

The Bad
What I came to not like about the game is that it was simple enough that a child could learn it. The qualities that endeared it to me as a younger boy made it boring and simple later. Had there been a higher level version, with a more complex world, it might have held my attention longer. But I was able to grow, while the program stayed where it was. I moved on to more complex systems and games.

The Bottom Line
An excellent kid's game, perfect to introduce a child to gaming and to self-mastery of the gaming environment. Not a great game for complexity-desiring adults.

The Good
E.T. was a hit movie. There was great potential in a game where you get to play E.T. and in the grand old adventure style had to run around town looking for the missing pieces to your phone so you can call home. Avoiding the FBI and the Scientist. Look for Elliott to help you with Reeses Pieces. There was a cool title screen and a recognizable E.T. Tune playing. But what I liked about the game was what it was supposed to be. Now it's only fun to go back and play as a bad game.

The Bad
All the excitement was about what the game was "Supposed" to be like. It's hard to navigate around without falling into holes and tricky getting out of them. But that is where some of the parts are hidden. The concept was great but due to the frills of the marketing needs there was little room for gameplay. The music and title screen used up 1/3 of the cartridge space. It was very disappointing and having bought it new made me think twice about buying other games.

The Bottom Line
Millions of dollars spent on the license. Too much spent on marketing. Too many limitations placed on the programmer. You control E.T. walking around different screens that represent your town. Trying to find the pieces of you phone so you can call home and get picked up by your ship. You have a limited amount of energy. Most of this is used to Levitate which you need to do to get out of holes. Bugs in the program make getting out of the holes tricky and you waste a lot of energy doing this. You have two bad guys to avoid. Find all the pieces, go to the landing zone, call home. Win game.