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Poll: Is ET as bad as people claim?


Andromeda Stardust

In light of the ET dig...  

176 members have voted

  1. 1. Is ET a bad game?

    • Yes, it sucks and deserves to be buried for all time. No one should have to play this abomination.
      32
    • No, it's awesome piece of history and needs to be played to be fully appreciated.
      144

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One word to show what a really BAD game looks like...

 

"Firefly"

 

I have E.T., I enjoy it, but it is not on my favorites list. It is more of a 'thinker' or strategy-oriented game than reflex-type games like Invaders, Kaboom, GORF, or Centipede.

 

I tend to group home video games into "Checkers" and "Chess" categories...

 

You have games that are fun and quick and require no manual to play. These games are very much linked to coin-op games and (when well executed) are a blast. Checkers.

 

Then there are games that have distinctive strategy elements to them... Ones which require thought and planning. They can still be fast paced, but don't have to be. These games are more related to card games or board games... Like chess.

 

 

I think E.T. has elements of both, but I place it into the Chess category... Slightly less common in VCS games than the checkers type games, but I think that gives a unique aura to it.

 

VCS was primarily a "home arcade," so most offerings were fast-paced, high score oriented reflex games. E.T. is an example of a game ahead of its time that was written in a hurry.

Are you the guy who posted that Firefly vid with the horrid sound effects? That was epicly bad; I LOL'ed so hard and watched it like 17 times... :rolling:

Edited by stardust4ever
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Hard to believe people are STILL kicking this dead horse. I think in the 25 topics of ET in the 2600 forum all viewpoints and arguments have been nailed down and covered. Is there anything else to add?

Whoops I kicked it again! :P

That dead horse is a rotting pile of flesh and flies. Even this thread was over a year old prior to the bump.

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E.T. is definetley not the worst video game of all time. As we all know Howard Scott Warshaw was only given a little over a month to develop E.T. and had a lot of pressure on him to make it into the top game of 1982. In my opinion I personally think it's a very good game, but not in any standards terrible. The harshest ai can say about it is it is very frustrating with all the wells that you fall into and playing in the first game variation dealing with the F.B.I. agent who takes away your phone and the scientist who drags you far out of the way in exploring for the phone pieces and getting back home. The third game variation is more like a beginner's/tutorial of the game. E.T. is a lot like Adventure for the 2600. The bats are just like the F.B.I. agent and the dragon is like the scientist. Same philosophies. The worst 2600 games in my book are. Firefly, Ssssnake, and Karate. If you never played them, consider yourself grateful you didn't.

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Hard to believe people are STILL kicking this dead horse. I think in the 25 topics of ET in the 2600 forum all viewpoints and arguments have been nailed down and covered. Is there anything else to add?

Whoops I kicked it again! :P

It's the worlds most famous video game now, world wide media coverage, TV, video, online, newspaper, 32 years later people talk about it.

I think there will be another 25 topics, if not, more.

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I've got to pick up a copy of Firefly now... :P

WARNING: Firefly for the Atari 2600 is bad for your ears. You may even get hearing damage from all of the horrible sound effects. I hold no responsibility and will not be held accountable in your decision to play it, and if you suffer permanent hearing disabilities. Play it at your own risk.

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WARNING: Firefly for the Atari 2600 is bad for your ears. You may even get hearing damage from all of the horrible sound effects. I hold no responsibility and will not be held accountable in your decision to play it, and if you suffer permanent hearing disabilities. Play it at your own risk.

Do you think the horned tweeters on my Jensen JP500 speakers will survive? Better use the internal TV speaker then... :P

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To me, the game was a case of "how could they possibly make a game out of this movie, much less make it any fun" because there was nothing about the movie that could feasibly translate into a workable game experience, even for the system it was programmed for. So in this case, E.T. for the Atari 2600 is like the elephant trying to perform ballet, and the people marvel not because of the elephant's grace at performing ballet, but just at the fact that it can perform ballet at all.

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It seems they set out to not to make a bad game but an unfun game. Can we say ET is simply unfun? There is nothing compelling about the gameplay, even though you can probably figure it out after a while.

I find it fun. It is Atari you have to get creative. I play it as " Constable Dirty Sanchez vs. The Green Poo Nugget"
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It seems they set out to not to make a bad game but an unfun game. Can we say ET is simply unfun? There is nothing compelling about the gameplay, even though you can probably figure it out after a while.

The game had an impossible development schedule, six weeks instead of six months. HSW also had tremendous hubris and instead of creating just "another pac-man" which Steven Spielberg had actually suggested, HSW had grandiose plans in an impossible time frame. The software equivalent of "A Bridge Too Far.

 

Problem was, Steven had a better idea of the demographic than HSW did. Steven knew his audience. It was the kids that were the same age as Gertie and Elliot in the movie. A simple to pick up game that allowed those kids to control ET eat Reese's Pieces and "phone home" would have been a blockbuster.

 

Instead we got ET with special powers that can only be used in certain areas on the map. The pits or craters that ET fell into continually and hid his "phone pieces" were nowhere to be seen in the movie. "Daddy, these pits weren't in the movie".

 

Add to that a complicated scoring metric that encouraged players to collect the Reeses Pieces, but penalized the player for using them to extend his life.

 

The game isn't at all intuitive, and even has you scratching your head after reading the manual. Some pretty high brow concepts for the 5 to 10 year old set.

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To me, the game was a case of "how could they possibly make a game out of this movie, much less make it any fun" because there was nothing about the movie that could feasibly translate into a workable game experience, even for the system it was programmed for. So in this case, E.T. for the Atari 2600 is like the elephant trying to perform ballet, and the people marvel not because of the elephant's grace at performing ballet, but just at the fact that it can perform ballet at all.

 

I think the movie has a lot of scenes that could translate into a video game. Particularly the bike chase scene... In fact, thats a game I'd like to play, riding your bike over the hills, dodge the cops, and occasionally ET can use his powers to make you fly (but only for short bursts)

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