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E.T. *NOT* the worst game ever!


jefframsey

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Last night, I watched a documentary on Amazon Prime called “Atari: Game Over” about the Great Video Game Burial in Alamagordo NM in 1983. During the movie they said that most top 10 worst video game lists picked E.T. on the 2600 as the worst video game of all time. I had heard this before, and seen a few of the lists, and I had even played it once in the past, but not before I had already heard about how bad it was from others. Maybe my opinion of the game was jaded by the rumors that it sucked so bad. I usually try to keep an open mind, but when you hear that it is the worst game ever, that’s a strong statement to try to ignore. 

 

After watching the movie, I decided to give it another try. One comment that was said in the movie was that it was not a bad game at all if you read the manual and learned how to actually play it. So I RTFM and discovered that there was much more to this game than I previously understood. You can actually get out of the pits reliability if you immediately move left or right when you get to the top of the pit. Most of the time, you won’t fall back into the pit if you practice this method. Also, there are clues on the top of the screen telling you what can be done while standing on a particular spot. Some of them even tell you which pit to go into to find a piece of your telephone that you are building so that you can “phone home”. Others tell you that pressing the button will send the FBI agent and scientist back to their homes. 

 

I ended up playing E.T. on the hardest difficulty level for about 2.5 hours straight. I never did beat it, although twice I had called the space ship and was trying to get back to the launch site when I died for the final time. 

 

To say the least, this game has a TON to offer. It really is a good game for this platform. If anything, maybe it was a bit ahead of its time. Too complex for the 1983 crowd, where you could pick up a joystick and play most games and never even look at the manual at all. I agree with the comment heard in the documentary: E.T. is not a bad game if you read the manual first. I think it may in fact be one of the better ones. 

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Of course it isn't.  The entire narrative was invented by little children that came of age in the NES era. 

 

The ones that played ET at the time were too young to play it (they didn't have any gaming skills) and understand it (read the instructions).  That age can vary wildly.

 

The others played it in the NES era and "Atari suckz cuz the NES rulez and the Atari graphicz be so badz".

 

I always consider the source.

 

If you want to see "bad", try to watch just about anything the BBC put on television in the 1970's.  Spoiler alert:  a bunch of snooty old guys sitting in chairs talking for hours.

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When I played ET as a kid it was just another average Atari game. Not great, not terrible. Its badness has been overblown because of the landfill thing. And it became emblematic of the video game crash because it was released near the end of 1982.

 

 

 

 

 

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15 hours ago, orange808 said:

Of course it isn't.  The entire narrative was invented by little children that came of age in the NES era. 

 

The ones that played ET at the time were too young to play it (they didn't have any gaming skills) and understand it (read the instructions).  That age can vary wildly.

 

The others played it in the NES era and "Atari suckz cuz the NES rulez and the Atari graphicz be so badz".

This is the case with loads of things. I watched "the video game years" on amazon a year or so ago and it was fairish right until the NES came out and then it was super fanboyism. Sega games like Phantasy Star got a brief mention while vague unoriginal NES games got entire segments. The series also had a bunch of animations, 90% of which were NES themed and maybe 1 was sega. Reality is the late 2600 games were amazing given the capabilities of the system. Compare the last games to the first ones! 

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Most VCS games were intuitive; ET was not.  That, and a pseudo-3D environment where the top of ET's head makes him fall into pits, or falling in one the moment he enters a new screen, helped it be called a bad game.  Some 37 years later, it's easy and arguably a little revisionist to say RTFM.

 

I'm glad you folks enjoyed it, though.  As a grown-up child, I appreciate the game's depth more (from what I've read).

 

I doubt it was the worst even on its own system, though none come to mind.  I remember buying some brand new $1 games that weren't fun.

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There are way worse games on the 2600,  not to mention other platforms.    I've always said E.T. is a souped-up version of Haunted House (grab three parts to an object and escape while avoiding the "spooks")   Yet Haunted house seems to be well-liked, but ET panned because nobody understands it.

 

Also people like simple narratives to explain complex events-  so they latch onto "E.T. was so bad it destroyed the industry".  But objectively this makes no sense.   Why would people stop buying INTV and Colecovision games because E.T. existed on the 2600?  Why would they stop visiting arcades, etc?  

 

Also remember that the problem with E.T. was that most of the cartridges they manufactured never sold so they were sent to landfill.   It wasn't a case of everyone bought the game and hated it,  most never bought the game in the first place!   You may argue that Atari printed to many cartridges,  but a game based on the hottest movie of the year with tons of advertising behind it, should have sold way better than it did.  Lots of parents would have been expected to buy it for their kids for Christmas, but didn't.   It wasn't the cause of the industry downfall, it was a symptom of it!

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30 minutes ago, PlaysWithWolves said:

Most VCS games were intuitive; ET was not.  That, and a pseudo-3D environment where the top of ET's head makes him fall into pits, or falling in one the moment he enters a new screen, helped it be called a bad game.  Some 37 years later, it's easy and arguably a little revisionist to say RTFM.

 

I'm glad you folks enjoyed it, though.  As a grown-up child, I appreciate the game's depth more (from what I've read).

 

I doubt it was the worst even on its own system, though none come to mind.  I remember buying some brand new $1 games that weren't fun.

I can totally see where I am being a revisionist, this review being 37 years later and all. I never played this game in 1983, or at least I don’t remember playing it. (I would have been 5.) And yes, it’s easy to say RTFM now, with all of the vast and complex places computers and computer games have taken us since then. In the 37 years that have passed, there have been several great games for other systems that would be nearly impossible to enjoy without reading the manual. (Star Raiders on 5200 was one for me personally.) In-game or on-screen instructions have since changed that but there were lots of them. 

 

The revisionist comment that you made really drives home my point: I think ET was as much of a case of being ahead of its time conceptually, than it being a rushed game or an unfinished game. In 1983, you could probably play 95% or more of the VCS games without reading anything before hand. Also, there were not many games at that time that tried to pull off a 3D landscape with such a limiting system to do it with. 3D on the VCS platform would be crazy hard to do a good job implementing today, even with all of the bank swapping and everything else currently going on with the platform. 

 

(Falling into a pit as soon as you enter a screen is frustrating, but I quickly learned that I should enter the screen near the middle of the right or left edge so that I minimize the risk of this happening. YMMV.)

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Yup, we got it for Christmas and played it a ton, as did many relatives and other neighborhood kids.  Never had any problems figuring out the pits.

 

Though most of the time we'd turn off the bad guys with the difficulty switch, as they could get really annoying.

 

 

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6 hours ago, Mikebloke said:

This is the case with loads of things. I watched "the video game years" on amazon a year or so ago and it was fairish right until the NES came out and then it was super fanboyism. Sega games like Phantasy Star got a brief mention while vague unoriginal NES games got entire segments. The series also had a bunch of animations, 90% of which were NES themed and maybe 1 was sega. Reality is the late 2600 games were amazing given the capabilities of the system. Compare the last games to the first ones! 

 

It's not fanboyism so much as that The Video Game Years is a nostalgia pop culture series and far more Americans are nostalgic for the NES compared to the SMS which flopped over here.

 

 

 

 

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ET was an average-to-poor game that release to the perfect blend of hype for the title & about to collapse game market that allowed it's middling quality to become warped and romanticized into 'the worst game ever, destroyed videogames!' Becuase that's a much more compelling narrative than 'one of many low quality titles that eventually overwhelmed the market and burst the bubble'. Just as it's a more compelling narrative these days to claim it's an underrated gem, only appreciated by those who took the time to 'get it'. I'm sure there's games from more modern times that will eventually be remembered as far worse then they really were due to outside context (immediately think of Too Human, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and No Man's Sky).

 

 

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1 hour ago, jefframsey said:

And yes, it’s easy to say RTFM now, with all of the vast and complex places computers and computer games have taken us since then.

But we actually read the manuals in those days.  We had to.   There were no tutorials to show us the ropes.   Lots of 2600 games would make no sense without the manual:  Adventure, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Riddle of the Sphynx, Superman, Star Raiders.    ET wasn't unique in that regard

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I wish my memory was so good that I could recall reading specific game manuals 35-40 years ago. ?  I was a voracious reader but sure don't remember reading Adventure's manual despite beating it many times. 

 

For all I know I even read the ET manual (I actually read the book adaptation back then).

 

Oh well.  Maybe I just didn't enjoy the initial experience enough to seek out the manual for more info?  Or perhaps I did and couldn't cognitively get past the head-pit nonsense? 

 

figure1.png.99bb99825140957355d6d7ab8f44f4ae.png Image from the "fixed" ET site.

 

Still, I agree there are likely worse.  

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