E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

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.

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
I first played this game a couple of years after it came out, when I was ten years old or so. It didn't seem all that bad at the time, and a lot of the subsequent criticism which has been heaped on the game just seems to be bandwagon-jumping. It's no worse than any of the other 2600 adventure-style games, such as 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' and... well, 'Adventure', I suppose, although the latter has historical interest. It has a nice theme tune and a good picture of ET, the game is simple enough to play, and passes the time well enough. The graphic of ET during the game captures his likeness effectively. If you get bored, you can make his head go up and down, and up and down. Up. And down.

The Bad
However, ET is nowadays a notorious software failure; Atari paid a lot of money for the ET licence, and when the game underperformed, thousands of unsold cartridges were buried in landfill, as there was no demand for them and it was cheaper than storing them or selling them at a loss. The major gameplay element involves exploring a set of holes in the ground - something which wasn't in the film - but perhaps due to a lack of testing, it's very easy to fall back into the holes after you have clambered out; furthermore, several of the screens have holes in such a position that, if you enter the screen from a certain direction, you tend to automatically fall into them. It's frustrating. Fandango trombone. The basic gameplay makes no sense if you don't have the instructions, as it is based around a set of icons which are meaningless in themselves.

The Bottom Line
ET is a notorious flop. As a game, it's so-so; frustrating and hard to follow, but easier to complete than most of the few other 2600 adventures ('Haunted House', however, thrashes it in every respect).However, the tale of surplus cartridges being pulped and buried gives it a certain cultural resonance, and along with the shoddy conversion of 'Pac-Man' it's an icon of the 1983 video games crash.