i actually enjoyed E.T

[Mazerati]

when i bought the game E.T for the 2600 in 83 i actually thought it was pretty good and compared

to a lot of other 2600 games the graphics were pretty decent and it wasn't until

the internet i found out how many people disliked it lol

[Rom Hunter]

E.T. is a nice game if you know how to play it.

 

People who still don't after fifteen minutes of gameplay, suck at video games.

 

[kroogur]

I too admit to liking this game very much! The only thing i needed the manual for was the symbol meanings other than that I figured out the pits on my own. I feel it's one of the better games for the 2600.

[rpgfaker]

My brother and I used to play the crap out of E.T. and consume vast amounts of Reese Pieces in the process. I always enjoyed the little space invader symbol.

[Mazerati]

My brother and I used to play the crap out of E.T. and consume vast amounts of Reese Pieces in the process. I always enjoyed the little space invader symbol.

 

lol that reminds me when i bought the Intellivision Kool Aid Man game me and a friend bought Kool Aid Packs

just so we can drink it while playing the game ahhh carefree times lol

[Atari2008]

I have to revisit ET but when I first got it in the mid-90s, I enjoyed it very much. It was funny I got ET and Pac-Man at a garage sale. I was really excited to finally get new Atari games since that was the time before the internet was big and before eBay so it was the only place I knew to get Atari games. I remembered playing Pac-Man for a few minutes before getting bored, but I logged in quite a few hours on ET. I found it fun and also I found it's adventure style game play reminisicent of the NES games that I really enjoyed at the time.

[Atarifever]

E.T. is a great game. It's clever, makes good use of the source material, has good graphics, and makes good use of the 2600 controller, despite the one button limitation.

[+else]

Just curious what difficultly you guys play on? I don't mind the easiest setting (the one without the FBI Agent and Scientist). I find the other levels really annoying and difficult though. I've never liked how the FBI Agent and Scientist can cheat by "flying" over the pits, not having to go around them like ET does. What are those guys wearing, top-secret jet-packs? Think about it -- if anything, shouldn't it be ET that can fly over the pits???

 

I always felt that if the game didn't cheat like this, it would have been immensely better. Of course, I realize doing so may have been beyond the limits of what the 2600 is capable of....

Edited February 5, 2009 by else

[Sayton]

That's awesome! If you'd like, check out my YouTube channel in my signature! I've got quite a number of E.T. videos in there...if you look, they're older vids, so you'll have to check towards the end of my videos.

[Godzilla]

One of these threads pops up every now and again, doesn't it? Though widely credited as a game so bad it killed an entire industry (I think the blame really likes in cereal manufacturers (etc,) trying to cash in on the video game craze by releasing shite like raft rider.) I wonder how many people back in the day thought of et poorly. I heard it sold really well (The only problem being Atari assuming people would like it SO much they would buy three carts for their one atari. What did Atari think, that people would use the carts as wallpaper or something?)

 

I myself have always defended E.T. and found it be one of the few examples of a good movie license. Still love that Krull, too, say true.

Edited February 6, 2009 by Godzilla

[moycon]

Though widely credited as a game so bad it killed an entire industry

 

Folks were looking for a scapegoat so a game with a super high licensing cost was an easy target.

From my memories I myself and everyone I knew had E.T. and no-one hated it or returned it in spite of peoples claims that they were all returned to retailers. For a game that everyone hated and that were all returned to retailers and/or buried, there sure are a hell of a lot of em.

 

Sure...shit games were the culprit of the crash if you ask me, but E.T. wasn't one of them. It just happen to have a higher price tag then most and was an easy thing to tell investors that year. E.T. or no, In the end, it would have crashed anyways, but ever since then E.T. bears the burden like a champ.

[Stan]

I don't think it's that bad of a game either and I have good memories playing it at a friend's home. It's not the best title, but like Porky's (yes I like it), once you get the hang of it it can be pretty fun.

[NightSprinter]

Yeah, I'm also one of the people who actually defend the game. They start with how it's a crap game, I just tell 'em "you need to read the instructions before you play.. it's a lot more like a computer game than a console game for the era". It was the same for Raiders of the Lost Ark. You HAD to read the instructions to understand how to play.

[Lord Thag]

I scored E.T. for 2$ back in the day. That was one awesome day. I loved the game as a kid! Sure, I wouldn't call it my favorite game, but it was certainly one of the better adventure games on the system. I like it better now than I did then, mainly because i play on the hardest difficulty.

 

My main grip was that it could have used a few more screens.

[famicommander]

Having owned the game for literally my entire life (my parents had the 2600 before I was born), I'm going to have to disagree with the majority in this thread. The control system is convoluted, the pits were poorly placed and simply a bad idea, and the places you need to find seem to be randomly placed. And if you don't have the manual, you may as well not even try.

 

The game isn't as bad as the average person thinks it is because they've never played it and only heard horror stories. But it's still a bad game.

[Godzilla]

random is good. GOOD. random == infinite replayability.

[stranno]

Well, its not a bad game, there are worse A2600 games than this, Texas Chainsaw Massacre could be the worst A2600 game in my opinion, E.T just need an ... instruction manual

Edited February 6, 2009 by stranno

[tisaperfectdayelise]

One of these threads pops up every now and again, doesn't it? Though widely credited as a game so bad it killed an entire industry (I think the blame really likes in cereal manufacturers (etc,) trying to cash in on the video game craze by releasing shite like raft rider.) I wonder how many people back in the day thought of et poorly. I heard it sold really well (The only problem being Atari assuming people would like it SO much they would buy three carts for their one atari. What did Atari think, that people would use the carts as wallpaper or something?)

 

I myself have always defended E.T. and found it be one of the few examples of a good movie license. Still love that Krull, too, say true.

 

Well, a few years ago, I found letters that my older sisters had written to Santa, two of them BEGGING for that game. I actually asked one of them, when I saw this post, what the deal was. She said that she had never heard of it being a bad game....so....apparently the average Atari players didn't mind it....I'm not sure how that sensationalism started....

[Nukey Shay]

(I think the blame really likes in cereal manufacturers (etc,) trying to cash in on the video game craze by releasing shite like raft rider.)

You are partially correct, but not in the way you might think. The "glut" of games (whether they are good or bad) was good for the consumer only, not for the producers in the industry. The profits just got more and more fragmented until they no longer went around. Unable to pull the numbers they used to, games are marked down more and more, then everything folds.

It didn't help matters that Atari and some others were doing a little inside trading...scaring off investors.

 

The effects would have been the same even if advanced games like Ladybug had been made back then.

 

 

 

I wonder how many people back in the day thought of et poorly. I heard it sold really well (The only problem being Atari assuming people would like it SO much they would buy three carts for their one atari. What did Atari think, that people would use the carts as wallpaper or something?)

No, they had to make the initial run that large to offset the cost of the license...the bigger the run, the less cost per unit the license has. It would have paid off well, too, if the industry would have been leading to another upswing. As far as how many "potential" units could be sold at the time goes, that was on the rise (there were 2600 clones/adapters on the market, broadening the user base for cartridges).

 

 

 

I myself have always defended E.T. and found it be one of the few examples of a good movie license. Still love that Krull, too, say true.

To me, E.T. has aways been a boring (too easy) game. Tho I knew quite a number of little kids that loved it.

 

 

 

Well, a few years ago, I found letters that my older sisters had written to Santa, two of them BEGGING for that game. I actually asked one of them, when I saw this post, what the deal was. She said that she had never heard of it being a bad game....so....apparently the average Atari players didn't mind it....I'm not sure how that sensationalism started....

Hindsight and looking for a scapegoat, as mentioned above. You could very well say that Mythicon's titles killed the industry, and it would be just as (in)correct. E.T. and Pac-Man have the most numbers out there, and both were released just before the full effect of the downswing became apparent to the public at large, so there ya go. Had Nintendo/Sega tried to enter the U.S. console market at that time, they also would have been casualties.

[Nukey Shay]

Well, its not a bad game, there are worse A2600 games than this, Texas Chainsaw Massacre could be the worst A2600 game in my opinion, E.T just need an ... instruction manual

 

TCM is at least playable (and it is pretty challenging to get a decent score in). There are some games out there that don't even have that going for them.

[+Random Terrain]

Speaking of E.T., guess what my sister and mother found the other day? It was an old picture of an E.T. cake that my mother made for my cousin back in 1983. I scanned it in and uploaded it to my web site last night:

 

http://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-me...es-et-cake.html

[Stan]

Well, its not a bad game, there are worse A2600 games than this, Texas Chainsaw Massacre could be the worst A2600 game in my opinion, E.T just need an ... instruction manual

 

Ugh, I don't know, probably going to have to go with Quick Step on that one!

[Atarifever]

The control system is convoluted, the pits were poorly placed and simply a bad idea, and the places you need to find seem to be randomly placed. And if you don't have the manual, you may as well not even try.

Convoluted? The controls are convoluted? If you want to perform the action pictured on the screen, press THE button. If you do not want to perform that action, do not press THE button. To go up move control stick up. Down is down. Left is left. Right is right. Yes. That is terribly confusing. Please someone hand me a controller with two analogs, four action buttons, four shoulder buttons, a start and select, a d-pad, and maybe even motion control. Remembering what all of those things do differently in the pause menu, in game, at the set-up screen, in the inventory menu, etc can be accomplished, but working one joystick and ONE button really is too much.

 

The places you need to find are random so that one does not finish the game once and then never play again. It's the same reason it is random in Adventure.

 

If you don't have the manual (and don't have the internet) I guess it's pretty confusing. Sending someone to DC shows a building from that screen. Teleporting is an arrow in the direction of the teleport. I believe shout for Eliot to come out is a picture of ET shouting. It is all terribly complex. Please get me Star Tropics so I can lose the letter and not be able to start my submarine.

[+else]

If you want to perform the action pictured on the screen, press THE button. If you do not want to perform that action, do not press THE button.

 

Now hold on -- its not all as simple as you make out out to be. The game uses the button for two purposes*, and it can be easy to do the wrong thing at the wrong time (especially in the heat of the moment -- when you're being chased). If you're standing still, it performs the action pictured (as you say). If you're walking, it makes you run. Personally, I think two buttons would have been better and less confusing for these two functions, rather than one context-sensitive button.

 

*three actually, it has another function when you are in a pit.

Finally, lets not forget that using the controls to levitate out of a pit IS very frustrating and confusing -- unless you know the "trick". And this trick ISN'T explained in the manual; you need the "hints" sheet that Atari published later on that explained how to do it. I think even the most die-hard E.T. lover would admit the controls for getting out of the pits leave a little something to be desired.

Edited February 6, 2009 by else

[elenag]

From my memories I myself and everyone I knew had E.T. and no-one hated it or returned it in spite of peoples claims that they were all returned to retailers. For a game that everyone hated and that were all returned to retailers and/or buried, there sure are a hell of a lot of em.

I was 10 years old when I got E.T. as a gift, and I distinctly remember giving it a chance. After about 1 or 2 hours of playing it, I hated it. It wasn't necessarily that I didn't understand it; it was that I didn't care to understand it. It was just boring to me. My mother took me to the store to exchange it for something else, and I remember the clerk mentioned they had gotten returns on the game. Also, some kids at school reported they had returned it.

 

Although probably exaggerated, the stories of hating and returning the game were true for me.