E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

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.