Video Game Myths: Fact or Fiction?

[silverpoodleman]

In the Yahoo! Video Games section today, the title topic is Video Game Myths: Fact or Fiction?. Now, I'm sure you can guess where I'm going here because this topic has been brought up a thousand times on this forum. Since I have nothing to personally add, I'll simply paste the section.

 

Million of Atari games are buried in the New Mexico desert

Anyone who experienced the mind-cramping pain of attempting to play E.T. for the Atari 2600 knows that one of two things should happen to any copy of that game: it should be burned or buried. As it turns out, Atari opted for the latter...in a big way.

 

In early 1983, things could not have been going worse for Atari. The one-time king of the home video game consoles had suddenly found itself in enormous debt after a series of unfortunate events: competing systems from Coleco and Mattel were stealing market share, the new Atari 5200 was panned for being unwieldy, and low sales of its troubled Pac-Man port and its legendarily bad tie-in to Steven Spielberg's smash hit E.T. gave the software giant a black eye. As consumer interest waned, retailers returned boatloads of unused stock to an Atari warehouse in El Paso.

 

And by boatloads, we mean millions of games. So what does an ailing company do with roughly 10 million cartridges it can't sell to a disinterested customer base? How about poke around New Mexico for a suitable dumping ground and bury the problem altogether?

 

That's precisely what happened. According to the Alamogordo Daily News and confirmed by the New York Times, a city landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico provided the answer to Atari's cartridge conundrum. To be safe, they steamrolled the mound of product flat and, for good measure, covered the resulting game pancake in concrete.

 

Fact or Fiction? Fact!

Edited January 29, 2008 by silverpoodleman

[Pipster]

That's been covered extensively many times, mainly here...

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...amp;hl=landfill

 

and here...

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...amp;hl=landfill

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:AtariLandfill.jpg

[Inky]

As well as here...

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=120477

[sandmountainslim]

Its just another excuse for some lame brain writer to ATTACK ET!!

ET is one of the finest games to ever fit in the mouth of an Atari and I am tired of all the slander.

WP

[godzillajoe]

E.T. is not even in the top 20 worst games made for the 2600

 

I think the problem is once emulation became popular every idiot that tried to play the game but had no idea what they were supposed to be doing because they never read the manual instantly dismissed it as "the worst game evar LOL!!!1!! OMG!!1!!" and ran to their blog to post about it.

 

If you know what you're supposed to do and don't just run around like a spaz, it's not that bad.

 

King Kong

Airlock

Sssnake

Karate

 

All worse and far less playable

[Lonely Mountain Hermit]

--Good things about E.T. for the Atari 2600--

 

1) Awesome title screen (great graphic, great rendition of the theme tune)

 

2) The in-game character actually looks like E.T. (which in recollection was a pretty big deal at that time)

 

3) The movie is about E.T. getting stranded on Earth, making friends, eating Reeses Pieces, getting chased around by scientists, building a phone and calling for a ride home...and the game is about E.T. getting stranded on Earth, making friends, eating Reeses Pieces, getting chased around by scientists, building a phone and calling for a ride home. Heck, its even got the part where E.T. gets sick and turns all white an crusty.

 

4) And as an added bonus its got some of the coolest easter eggs ever!

 

I'd say the biggest Video Game Myth is that E.T. is the worst video game ever made. I'll take E.T. over Firefly any day.

[Rom Hunter]

Everyone who can't get out of the wells after ten minutes of playing E.T. sucks at video games.

 

Period.

 

It's the only 'obstacle' in the game and not even a big one.

 

[Math You]

ET looks quite good in this video...

 

...and pretty bad in this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQZ5lBgzHBk

 

It's a shame nobody has hacked into it and sorted out the 'fall in the hole when I'm nowhere near it' issue.

[kroogur]

In the Yahoo! Video Games section today,

 

Million of Atari games are buried in the New Mexico desert

 

 

Fact or Fiction? Fact!

 

"Million of Atari games"???? geez Yahoo proofread much? or perhaps it was supposed to read "All your Million of Atari games are belong to us?"

 

 

With that said i never had a problem with E.T. it was one of my favorites it was pretty dang good for it's time.

[Skylark68]

I loved E.T. when it came out. If you took 10 minutes and read the instruction book you would know how to play it. It's actually kind of charming and fun. Swordquest Fireworld on the other hand sucked and was much worse. Even after reading the instructions it made it no more playable.

[Fixitguy74]

Everyone who can't get out of the wells after ten minutes of playing E.T. sucks at video games.

 

Period.

 

It's the only 'obstacle' in the game and not even a big one.

 

I agree! Kids these days can play Guitar Hero and other games that require several buttons and controls, yet get "skooled" by a game thats 20+ years old and uses one stick and one button. Then they blame it on the game being the worst ever made.

 

Do I like the game? Well no, not really, but it is not the worst game ever made (and yes I can get out of those darn holes). I just happen to like shooters, some sports titles and racers more, like centipede, space invaders, enduro and super challenge baseball.

Edited January 30, 2008 by Fixitguy74

[Rom Hunter]

It's a shame nobody has hacked into it and sorted out the 'fall in the hole when I'm nowhere near it' issue.

There is no such issue, because it's simply not true.

 

[RickHarrisMaine]

The article also attacked "lackluster Pac-Man" for the 2600. Yeah, sure, it didn't look that great, but it plays just like the arcade, what's bad about that?

[mos6507]

Just because Atari made too many ETs and hyped it too much doesn't mean everybody hated it. From a business standpoint it was a failure but I would argue that from a critical standpoint that it was respected by gamers as well as any other halfway decent title. Anyone who really liked Raiders found something to like in ET since the two have such similar play patterns, just as Haunted House or Superman does with Adventure. But Atari didn't grossly hype and overproduce Haunted House and Superman cartridges! So everything is relative. It wasn't necessarily my first choice to play the game back in the day, but I did go for it on occasion.

 

You also have to remember that the plot of ET is kind of, how shall we say it, wussy, compared to Raiders? At least with Raiders, while you have to avoid danger, you still have a whip and a gun (and a grenade in the beginning). There is a certain helplessness in ET that would hurt just about any game based on it. He's constantly running away from danger and seeking out food to survive. He never gets a chance to fight back, only escape in the end. It's a game that would appeal to younger kids, but the difficulty level of the game is too high for them.

[Foxsolo2000]

Does anyone really care anymore about this? Lets just agree to disagree about the Et burial myth and move on

[Impaler_26]

I like ET, it may not be everyones taste but it's by far not the worst 2600 game!!!

 

It's a shame nobody has hacked into it and sorted out the 'fall in the hole when I'm nowhere near it' issue.

There is a hack of ET with smaller pits, IMO it takes the fun out of the game but here it is anyway...

ET_2_Pits_Hack_by_Scott_Stilphen.bin

[Vic George 2K3]

Tattoo from Fantasy Island: "Da pits, Boss, da pits!"