E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

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.

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
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.