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.