the E.T. hype

[toptenmaterial]

We all know that E.T. is not the "worst game ever". In my opinion, it's an average game with some ambitious goals. The visual style isn't bad. It's just not intuitive in the least. There are shitty, unplayable games on every system, and this ain't one of 'em. So why all of the fuss?

 

Here are some of my humble opinions: E.T. did not wipe out Atari, but it certainly was indicative of the meglomania and short-sightedness that permiated Atari from top to bottom. E.T. and Pac-Man were the results of this unsound thinking. WB went all in and lost their shirts; at least that's the layman conclusion that I've drawn.

 

The rest is an internet myth. I knew nothing of E.T. or the crash as a boy. I didn't own an Atari; I was an NES kid. I had seen used E.T. carts floating around thrift stores, if I recall correctly, but these meant nothing to me. When I finally got my first Atari 2600, in the summer of 2006, I hit the internet to research games, and discovered the crash and the E.T. lore. I knew nothing of either beforehand.

 

Now, I'm not disputing the reality of the crash. It happened, starting when I was about 3 years old and ending when I was about 5 or 6. But I never learned anything about it until I was 26. And of course I learned on the internet. Growing up, I learned about the great depression and the shitty 70s. And I personally remember the stock market crash of 1987, when my parents lost about $60,000 as I later found out. But not a word of the crash. Now why is that?

 

E.T. was not "so bad it killed the industry". But it is an example of bad business strategies. That's my 2 cents.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

I think I pretty much agree with your points. Indeed it was not so much those titles that hurt Atari so but bad management and planing when they considered how many of them should be manufactured I have noticed for years a large majority of those that go on about it being the "worse game ever" and "the biggest reason for the crash" etc, are often by people of various ages that never played it back in the day or attempt to play it without aid of instructions assuming E.T. was like many 2600 titles that you could just pick up and play without knowing the details of game-play required. If they DO actually have the instructions they tend to give it a 5-10 minutes TOP play test just to say "YES I DID play it!" but they went in biased believing all the bad hype and bad press so mentally they are not really trying to see for themselves if it really is that bad but to convince themselves it sucks as they have heard. Also, I have seen many young (say anywhere from 8 - 17) youtuber's making the same tired old videos about how it sucks, caused the crash etc,usually in a poorly filmed and curse laden "review" ala AVGN style. I am NOT pulling this out of my ass or creating stereo types, there are many examples like this one need only do a quick search to find themselves.

 

I've NO ISSUE with anyone of any age who honestly thinks E.T, Pac Man, Raiders of the Lost ark or any 2600 title sucks, it is nice though to see the person making such claims to of given it an honest shot with proper instructions and an honest attempt to play them as they would any modern PC or console video game. Not just jumping on the bandwagon or vying for attention just for the sake of it lol. Hell if they do that and totally right off the 2600 or any console that is fine, there is no right or wrong in this matters, it is certainly all subjective, just don't be a follower for the sake of attention.

[toptenmaterial]

Thanks OSGR. I too am accustomed to "pick up and play" games. My introduction to gaming was Super Mario

Bros, which is all intuition. Even today, if instructions for games are needed, then they are presented in cut scenes by a talking star or something of that nature. Not then, it wasn't practical. I would imagine that adults who were into home computers at the time would have dug E.T. As Random Terrain put it, young kids just cutting their teeth on reading weren't digging this game on Christmas morning. There are other games of this ilk that aren't sensationalized; Utopia for INTV comes to mind.

Edited December 16, 2012 by toptenmaterial

[AAirhart]

I liked Raiders. Pacman was ok until I played the arcade version..

But E.T...... And those damned holes. Leave a screen in the wrong place and fall! I still harbor rage for that game at 31.

[karokoenig]

The manual is actually quite clear about how to get out of the holes properly. We played it as kids back in the days, and I remember finding it mediocre, but not "most awful". In hindsight, I actually find it rather good. As an adventure type of game, it had a lot of complexity (for 2600 standards), but at the same time was much more intuitive than, say, Raiders. Incidentally, I got a copy not too long ago, popped it in and almost won my first game, just from memory of how it's played.

 

The AVGN movie is gonna be interesting in that regard. Let's see if he's just howling with the wolves or if he's gonna do a honest and through review. I know he's not supposed to, because he hardly ever did. Basically, he has it in his hands to bust one of the greatest myths in gaming history. Would be an interesting twist if he actually did it. And I'd love to see the faces of those drop who pay entrance to the theater, screaming at the top of their lungs "E.T.'s gonna be f'd up the A! That'll be so cool" - then not getting what they want. I'd predict a significant number of hate mails to the AVGN from those folks.

 

Would I go as far as saying "with power comes responsibility"? No, that would be asking too much. Still, the AVGN DOES have a lot of influence in the gaming world. That being said...

 

...Happy 30th birthday, E.T.! You are not a supermodel, but you sure ain't the ugliest chick in town.

Edited December 16, 2012 by karokoenig

[Andromeda Stardust]

I had some explosive diarrhea the other night. I got up off the pot and examined the contents prior to the flush. Yup, just as I expected: the toilet bowl was clogged full of ET carts, and maybe a Pacman or two!

 

And to think people actually played this **** on their Ataris back in the early 80s!

[Schizophretard]

Thanks OSGR. I too am accustomed to "pick up and play" games. My introduction to gaming was Super Mario

Bros, which is all intuition. Even today, if instructions for games are needed, then they are presented in cut scenes by a talking star or something of that nature. Not then, it wasn't practical. I would imagine that adults who were into home computers at the time would have dug E.T. As Random Terrain put it, young kids just cutting their teeth on reading weren't digging this game on Christmas morning. There are other games of this ilk that aren't sensationalized; Utopia for INTV comes to mind.

 

You are a year older than me but started with NES and I started with VCS. That seems odd to me. Anyway, I find it interesting that you brought up Super Mario Bros., "pick up and play" games, and intuition. Before my brother got the NES and Super Mario Bros. our Super Mario Bros. game was Pitfall!. The gameplay of swinging on vines, climbing ladders, jumping on crocodiles, jumping over scorpions and so forth is just as intuitive as Super Mario Bros. but the main objective is even less intuitive than E.T. I knew the objective of E.T. was to phone home because I learned that from the movie. I had no idea what Pitfall Harry's objective was. E.T.'s map is just six screens on a cube. That isn't too hard to memorize but Pitfall!'s map requires putting pen to paper. Falling in E.T.'s pits and figuring out how to get out has a learning curve but Pitfall!'s pits skipping a screen is even harder to learn. As a small child that couldn't read yet, how was I suppose to figure out that I need to draw a map and that while drawing the map I would figure out that the pits skip screens? From my point of view, it was all about swinging, jumping, falling, going through warp tunnels in pits, and then getting a game over because there is a timer for some mysterious reason. Back then I liked Pitfall! more based on what I understood because I got to run around pretending I'm Indiana Jones. That part of the game was "pick up and play" for me but understanding the game completely was harder than understanding E.T. E.T. didn't have that "pick up and play" aspect but understanding the game completely was easier than Pitfall!. I never did understand it completely but now that I do I can see that learning E.T. was closer to my intelligence. With Pitfall! I could "pick up and play" being Indiana Jones but I couldn't "pick up and play" being E.T. I think that's why we thought Pitfall! was one of the best games and E.T. was one of the worst. But now that I do understand them they seem to be on somewhat an even playing field. They are more appropriate for older kids with the intelligence to figure them out. Neither were meant for young kids but them being marketed for all ages made Pitfall! come out the winner because us dumbass preschoolers could run around pretending to be Indiana Jones. If Atari and Activision marketed the games for older kids, I don't believe I would have thought,"Pitfall! rules and E.T. sucks!". I would have thought they both sucked and Atari would have came out the winner because all my Indiana Jones needs ,that were at my level of intelligence, were in Jungle Hunt.

[Unbeliever]

Sad to say, I don't even have a copy of E.T. for my VCS. Go figure!

[keitaro]

Yes, there are three things I'm tired of read copy+pasted everywere:

 

- ET causing the crash: NO. There were a oversaturation of consoles and games, and for my very personal perspective, a model business almost controlled by toy companies (MB, Coleco) with 'toy managent style' that no worked anymore: target to kids, excesive profit margin from game sales (reduced game prices should be reduced before the crash). And yes, computer became more popular, with cheaper media than cartridges (disks and cassettes). But in overall, It was saturation in systems and games available.

 

- Crash as a global fact: NO. It was a USA only fact. Meanwhile Japan was a healthy and growing both arcade and home market and Europe has living their own golden era industry, starting in UK both in home hardware and software and expanding to rest of Europe.

 

- Super Mario Bros and NES was played everywhere from 1986: NO. The 'new wave' of console systems didn't have their boom in Europe until '89-'90. Until that, Super Mario was only a game more, and even most known for their arcade version than their home version.

[jrok]

I think part of the trouble with E.T. as a game was that it was a little too ambitious for its own good. Players were almost given too much to do -- keeping track of invisible power zones, collecting candy, searching for phone parts, running from FBI guys -- and the heavy memorization factor involved probably felt more like work than play to people who played Atari for high scores and arcade thrills. Having to remember which screen exits would deposit you where, which pits contained which phone parts, where the invisible call and pickup spots were, the invisible spot you can call Elliot, the invisible spots where you could scare away your enemies, warp to different rooms, take a bubble bath, run for Congress, etc... this all seemed better suited for a graphic adventure style of game like the Sierra "Quest" series or Maniac Mansion, where you click for hotspots to interact with on various screens. Those sorts of games can be fun in their own right, but IMO the 2600's resources we're better suited for arcade action. In most computer graphic adventures, the hotspots are likewise invisible, but on systems with a more expansive graphics capabilities, you can give the player better visual clues on where to click. With E.T., the process was more minimal and abstract - rather than remembering that the spot to call Elliot was the pay phone booth next to the drug store, you instead had to remember that it was slightly to the left of the jagged pit that looked slightly different than all the other jagged pits in Elliots' quaint strip-mining town of Pittsville, U.S.A.

 

And the few "action" elements that E.T. included felt forced and chore-like as well. Running from the FBI guy and the Scientist might have been a bit more fun if they couldn't magically float over those pits, or if you could use the fire button to float across them yourself instead of suicide-sprinting into them like an intergalactic lemming. The way things are, there is no game of cat-and-mouse: your enemies are just big, human-shaped heat-seeking missiles, and encounters with them mean you either find a roman numeral hot spot ("II"), you lose some time, or you get mugged and have to fall into more pits and grind for the stolen phone part again. And the way that the screens connect to each is so weird that it just looks and feels buggy.

 

Maybe The best example of this is if, at the start of a new game, you move E.T. up one screen. Instead of wrapping and reappearing at the bottom of the next screen in a logical way, E.T. instead appears near the top of the next screen, just above a pit, and if you keep moving up you... reappear on the first screen, right back where you started, and again near the top of the screen. This is probably one of the all-time great WTF Atari moments. If it was an unsquashed bug that's bad enough, but given the odd way some of the other screens connect, it was possibly a whacked-out design decision. Either way, it's not explained in the manual, so it just feels confusing and broken.

 

It's not the "worst game ever made" by a long shot, but it's still terrible. I think it was attempting to abstract a kind of gameplay (graphic adventure) that wasn't really suitable for abstraction, the screen-to-screen navigation was illogical and/or broken and the action-oriented concessions it made just weren't any fun.

Edited December 16, 2012 by jrok

[Cynicaster]

ET and Pac-Man are not nearly the worst games for the system, they're just high profile examples of mediocre-to-bad games that disappointed lots of people, so they get a disproportionate amount of criticism. Nobody places that blame on Sorcerer, because relatively speaking, nobody heard of or bought Sorcerer.

 

Speaking of Sorcerer, if you go back through the 2600 catalog, you see this large homogenous glut of games that clearly were half-assed opportunistic forays into a hot market and not serious works like, say, Activision games. That blob... that non-descript mass of crap software crashed the domestic console market, not any game in particular.

 

As for ET, I agree that the internet lore has exaggerated and distorted its legacy, but the game always was kind of a joke. Even as a little kid in the 80's I *clearly* remember it being that game that everybody had but never played, the game that could be found at yard sales for a quarter, the game that everyone liked to laugh at and use as a benchmark of crappiness ("haha, this game is worse than ET!", etc.). I had about 4 copies of it back then because everybody would bring it over and leave it in my basement, as if to dump their trash. Couldn't help but notice I never had multiple copies of Enduro randomly popping up in my collection.

 

I'm not saying that I think ET is as bad as everyone says, I'm just making the point that, in my experience, to say that ET bashing is a phenomenon of the Internet age is inaccurate.

 

 

[Mirage]

Growing up, I learned about the great depression and the shitty 70s.

 

Unless you're referring to the economy specifically, the '70s were not shitty, they were glorious!

[KevinMos3]

I've said it before and I'll say it again... I loved E.T. as a kid and still do today.

 

Like TopTenMat, I lived through the crash and never knew it happened. In my world, there was never a time when other kids weren't all buying and playing video games. Most everyone I knew was playing and getting new games for their 2600s right up till the NES was introduced. There never seemed to be a hiccup to us. I suppose it was pretty real to the adults who were watching the stock market though. My parents never actually got me a 2600 until '86 when the Jr. came out (because it was "under 50 bucks!"), but I was sure obsessed with Atari and all my friends and cousins had one.

 

I also never knew anyone who hated E.T. as a kid. I got it along with a few other games and my 2600 for Christmas in '86. I always loved roaming around, exploring the world and searching for phone pieces. My brother and I used to tease Elliot by calling him and seeing how long we could run from him before he would take our candy. I usually played on the easiest difficulty because I would get frustrated being chased by two humans. Now that I'm grown, I prefer the hardest difficulty because it has a little bit of challenge and more strategy. To me, it's a game that never gets old, and I've grown to like it even more after watching Random Terrain's videos some time ago.

[bombidragon]

I even have a sealed one!

 

Sad to say, I don't even have a copy of E.T. for my VCS. Go figure!

[AAirhart]

I also have a sealed one

 

[godzillajoe]

"E.T sucks!" is the "Freebird!" of the Atari universe. Everybody thinks they're clever when they proclaim it.

[Mirage]

I have a sealed one and have had many many many loose ones over the years obtained in lots. I've seen dozens upon dozens of them in thrift stores over the years too, to this day. If so many were returned, they sure did make a sh!t ton of them to begin with! To say they overproduced a little sounds reasonable given all the advertising hype and build-up before Christmas that year.

 

I remember it being not all that bad BITD. My friends and I liked Raiders of the Lost Ark much better... we collaborated on that for weeks to solve it. We didn't really do that with E.T. but we did play it, and none of us really complained about it, though it wasn't the best game in the world, it wasn't the worst. For some reason, of all the games I had back then, I have more vivid memories of playing this game for long stretches on weekend mornings than most others. Probably for the exact reason that it took longer to play it than many others.

 

All in all, my memories of the game are pretty fond, certainly not overly negative. Those somewhat negative memories are more reserved for the SwordQuest games, or rather, the first one since I never went past the first one back then.

[high voltage]

Maybe girls were cleverer at it

 

 

Anyway, the game came in 82, the crash was in 84, no connection

Edited December 16, 2012 by high voltage

[Jinks]

really?? this discussion AGAIN!!???

[Chuck D. Head]

Maybe girls were cleverer at it

 

Clever enough to buy the Activision version, anyways. If she bought it for eight bucks, it must have been already out for a while and discounted; to be fair it was along time ago and memory plays tricks. Other than that, great story and refreshing angle from "mainstream" gaming press.

[Mirage]

really?? this discussion AGAIN!!???

 

LOL, that was my first thought too. This and A8 vs. C64 are the 2 subjects that just won't die and will never be resolved to everyone's satisfaction.

[totengott]

the poor kid on my street had ET when i was a kid...i remember having no idea how to play it or what i was supposed to be doing

[karokoenig]

really?? this discussion AGAIN!!???

 

Well... Christmas '82 - Christmas '12... it is an anniversary.

[+Random Terrain]

Leave a screen in the wrong place and fall! I still harbor rage for that game at 31.

 

It was stupid, but you can work around it:

 

www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-et-map.html

 

 

 

 

When you tell the doctor that it hurts to raise your arm over your head, sometimes the answer is to stop raising your arm over your head.

 

 

These videos might be helpful:

 

[Master Phruby]

As a kid E.T. was one of my favorite games. I use to see how many candy pieces I could collect and give to Elliot before jumping aboard the space ship with very little energy left. I use to do speed runs on it too (before it was fashionable). It's a simple game and any skilled player could avoid the pits easy enough.

 

Now if you want to talk bad games, look at Air Raid. It's worth thousands of dollars but is a pure suck-fest to play.