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

[zzip]

1 hour ago, orange808 said:

Who's expectations?  That's complicated.  The problem was Atari management and an IP that didn't inspire any excitement or high expectations from gamers.

 

Old guys that didn't play video games and viewed the business as a quick money making fad made the sales "expectations".  Those were the expectations of the same people that believed Atari computers shouldn't be an open platform for third party software.  They didn't know what they were doing--and they weren't trying very hard to figure it out.

 

ET was definitely a misguided license that wasn't marketed properly.  It definitely wasn't the kind of game that sells a ton.  It was a complex and difficult game for the newly minted "gamer" demographic (I think I might be one of those) packed inside a casual IP.   That's not the game's fault.  They hired the wrong dev for the IP.

 

I saw ET and thought it was for little kids.  There's the first problem, right?  Kinda like when Capcom made an awesome adventure game based on Willow; lots of people missed it because Willow wasn't a movie that got us genuinely excited to see it again.  ET isn't a lasting character that inspires imagination.

 

Almost everyone I know got the game discounted.  The target for the game didn't want the game at release.  Most of us discovered it later.  I didn't have a ton of money and games were $30.  That was a lot of money--and I didn't get games often; I couldn't afford to blow my cash on lame kiddie game.

E.T. was huge, but you hit upon something.    It did appeal to little kids more so than teens and those on the verge of becoming teens.   I was 11 and right on the cusp there.

 

Still though, the game had a Christmas release, and the expectation was that parents would snap up a ton of copies for their kids on Christmas morning.   And normally that should have happened,  but that was also the year that parents were beating up other parents over Cabbage Patch Kids.

[FroggoGamer]

The only downside to needing the manuals was the fact no one had the manuals when they resold them at yard sales and flea markets. 

 

But my least favorite game on the system as a kid was Sky Jinks. I have raised my opinion of that game as an adult but as a kid I despised that game. 

[doctorclu]

Played E.T. for hours when I bought it and sometimes like to play through a game every now and then.

 

I remember when I found the Yar from Yar's Revenge.  I just sat there in disbelief for several minutes and then called a friend about it.

[orange808]

57 minutes ago, zzip said:

E.T. was huge, but you hit upon something.    It did appeal to little kids more so than teens and those on the verge of becoming teens.   I was 11 and right on the cusp there.

 

Still though, the game had a Christmas release, and the expectation was that parents would snap up a ton of copies for their kids on Christmas morning.   And normally that should have happened,  but that was also the year that parents were beating up other parents over Cabbage Patch Kids.

Good point, but did your parents run out and blindly purchase you a $30 game?  Mine didn't.  That's expensive.  Big ticket items were requested.

 

They got me what I asked for--and it wasn't hard to figure out because it was circled in the Sears Xmas catalog, written in the margins, and mentioned multiple times! 

 

Remember the Christmas catalogs?

 

ET was big, but Siskel and Ebert don't matter.  That doesn't mean ET was cool.  It was just a popular movie.  Mad Max, Dirty Harry, Tron, GI Joe, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Dukes of Hazzard, and Buck Rogers (and Wilma.. Erin Gray..) were cool, not some meladramatic little scared stuffed animal that doesn't even have a laser gun.  ET didn't go fast or shoot.  I didn't want him on my lunchbox  (And Siskel and Ebery didn't choose what I liked.  They thought Dangerous Liaisons was better than Bill and Ted. Pfft..  Whatever, man.)

 

Sound "juvenile"?  Well, I'm talking about being a ten year old boy.  Of course it's juvenile.  That's the target market, here.

[jefframsey]

Just now, orange808 said:

They got me what I asked for--and it wasn't hard to figure out because it was circled in the Sears Xmas catalog, written in the margins, and mentioned multiple times! 

 

Remember the Christmas catalogs?

Now it all comes back... Those damn catalogs! I used to do the same thing. Circle something, write in the margins, and then leave that page open in the book on the table beside my mom's chair. What an ungrateful little greedy kid I was. And yes, that is how I got the games I wanted.

 

But my mom would be the one who would buy a game that I didn't ask for, once it came down to $5-10. She'd just come home with it and say "For the price, let's try it. If it's no fun, we'll sell it at a yard sale." Not very often, but she did do this occasionally.

[PlaysWithWolves]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

E.T. was huge, but you hit upon something.    It did appeal to little kids more so than teens and those on the verge of becoming teens.   I was 11 and right on the cusp there.

 

 

I was wondering yesterday if there could be an Ewok Line for the E.T. game.  I was 14 in 1982 and did enjoy the movie itself.  Pretty much loved almost anything science fiction or fantasy and it wasn't always space lasers.  

 

 

But I still think it was too much pit-falling.

[Flojomojo]

9 minutes ago, PlaysWithWolves said:

I was wondering yesterday if there could be an Ewok Line for the E.T. game.  I was 14 in 1982 and did enjoy the movie itself. 

That's brilliant. I'm certain there is such a thing, just like there probably is for things like

 

- prequel hatred

- Final Fantasy VII

- the Atari 2600

- the NES

- digital downloads

- arcade games

- mobile phones

 

and countless other things I can't even remember because I'm on the left of The Ewok Line. 

[orange808]

9 minutes ago, PlaysWithWolves said:

 

I was wondering yesterday if there could be an Ewok Line for the E.T. game.  I was 14 in 1982 and did enjoy the movie itself.  Pretty much loved almost anything science fiction or fantasy and it wasn't always space lasers.  

 

 

But I still think it was too much pit-falling.

That's great!  I haven't laughed that hard in a long time! 

 

Sure, I liked anything science fiction, but certain franchises captured your imagination more than others.  C'mon!  Which alien is better?  ET or Ford Prefect?  There's no competition.

 

Definitely an Ewok line with ET. 

[Flojomojo]

The ET relationship is a pit-shaped U curve. Only the exceptional people at either end of the curve can appreciate it, one side because they're so smart, the others because they're not.  

 

 

 

[jefframsey]

2 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

The ET relationship is a pit-shaped U curve. Only the exceptional people at either end of the curve can appreciate it, one side because they're so smart, the others because they're not.  
 

 

Just when I though that this thread was slowing down... I am literally LOLing in my office right now! Too funny!

[zzip]

2 hours ago, orange808 said:

Good point, but did your parents run out and blindly purchase you a $30 game?  Mine didn't.  That's expensive.  Big ticket items were requested.

I actually did get E.T. for Christmas that year, along with the 2600 to play it on.   We weren't well off by any means,  most of my friends already had 2600s or Intellivisions

[orange808]

22 minutes ago, zzip said:

I actually did get E.T. for Christmas that year, along with the 2600 to play it on.   We weren't well off by any means,  most of my friends already had 2600s or Intellivisions

 

My birthday fell close to Christmas and those of us with that kind of birthday all heard the old "birthday and Christmas" thing. 

 

Anyhow, I remember getting Berzerk and Star Raiders that year.  My brother got Pitfall! and something else.

 

I don't have the catalog, but I bet I had a numbered list and I know ET wasn't circled at all.

 

That reminds me.  VCS Star Raiders certainly hasn't aged well.  Loved it that Christmas, though.

 

Makes sense that your parents would guess at the games if the system was brand new.  I got the system with Dodge 'Em, Night Driver, Warlords, and Combat.   I remember liking Night Driver best that Christmas, because my brother couldn't blow me up.  I think that was Christmas 1980, so we were pretty lucky kids. 

 

Anyhow, once we had the system, we got more savvy (and older) and started requesting specific games.

[Ron Flesher]

On 8/11/2019 at 3:01 PM, Jin said:

Anyone who has played Fire Fly is well aware that E.T. is not the worst game on the Atari 2600, let alone the worst game of all time.

 

I have played Fire Fly and know this to be true.

[Northcoastgamer]

Many games "suck" until you learn the patterns, movement, etc. E.T. is a great game if you take the time to learn it. Try rolling the score on difficulty A/A.

[doctorclu]

17 hours ago, PlaysWithWolves said:

 

I guess I am the camp of those born in the early 70's that actually realized that the Ewoks were vicious cannibals that were set on eating the heroes before Luke convinced them C3P0 was something powerful to be worshiped.   Also the Ewoks were using stormtrooper helmets as drums and I don't want to know what they did with the bodies.   Yeh, I could appreciate that.

[Flojomojo]

They were going to eat Artoo as well, and he's made of metal. They were going to chew up his metal carcass after heating it up! I wonder if someone's made an altered edit of ROTJ with truly savage Ewoks. 

 

I mean, besides this. 

 

Starmaster by Activision holds up in a way that Star Raiders on 2600 does not. But no one bothered to remake ET or anything like it. With all the recycled concepts out there, that's a little surprising, and in a small way speaks to its lack of popularity. 

[high voltage]

Million seller though.

[orange808]

Popularity and quality are not the same thing..

 

https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/16/the-app-store-is-proof-were-in-idiocracy/

[Video]

Et was nowhere near the worst game of all time. It wouldn't make the top ten (or hundred, for that matter) worst on the 2600 either.

 

That said, no, it was not a good game either. No the God damned manual is not some miraculous bible that suddenly turns it into a good game some how. Yes yard sales got you just a cart, I can see that, but for those of us that got it new, I loved reading manuals. Still do, but modern games not having them is a different discussion.b

 

I was around ten when I got it, and looked forward to it, after all, adventure and supermans are some of my favorite games from the era. These are huge complex games, adventure took me YEARS to beat the first time (superman was months) raiders I got later, and it took quite a while to beat too, but being older and better at games, I think it was down to weeks at that point.  Et? Yeah, including the time to read the manual, it took me 30 minutes to beat. And holes, holes, fucking holes. There is so much in the movie that could have made it in, and made this go from mediocre to amazing. What did we get? A forest, a house, and four holes.

 

Is it the worst ever? Hell no. Was it some misunderstood masterpiece? Hell no. It's a firmly middle ground game that was complete, and played off fanboyism (wether it's for the movie, or the adventure type game type) and largely fails on both accounts.

 

That said, what it has as negatives is, it's small, holes, and it's not readily self explanatory. In an age of mostly pick up and play games, that's not good, ESPECIALLY as it is aimed largely at kids.

But, positives too. It's one of the earliest games with a impressive (for its time) title screen, with music. The world is round, er, cubical. You go in a straight line and you'll get back to where you started from. It's random, if not for this, I doubt anybody would bother defending it. AND, it IS complete, as in you can get et home (yes, even Atari has a few unbeatable games, not counting score based games)

[azure]

22 hours ago, Video said:

(yes, even Atari has a few unbeatable games, not counting score based games)

 

Does anyone know a list of 2600 games that were unbeatable due to bugs or impossible difficulty (such as jumps that cannot be made even if they're flawless)?

 

Not including games with intentional endings (Raiders, ET, etc) or scores rolling over to 0.

Edited August 19, 2019 by azure

[Nukey Shay]

Berzerk springs to mind.  The attract mode timer is never reset, and increases whenever you are not moving at the point of a framecounter rollover...so it WILL end a game eventually.  You get 127 chances* to miss the cue, then it's lights out.  This is a little over 9 minutes* if just wait around for it to happen.

 

* Note that waiting around to BEGIN a game lowers the number of chances/idle time you get...so always start immediately upon powerup (after selecting your game #) before those marathons!

 

And Ebivision Pac-Man has pretty much as an impossible final level.  This game lowers your speed the further you get, so by then you are moving so slowly that it's a sure bet that the red ghost is gonna get you (he zeroes in on your position all the time, unlike Pac-Man), if one of his mindless companions doesn't first.

Edited August 19, 2019 by Nukey Shay

[Classic Pac]

ET is far from the worst game that I ever played, Bugs 2600, Bubsy 3D PS1, and Wall-E DS are all far worse.

[Video]

I forget the name, maybe diver or something. I've got it and it's a nice idea, start on a boat, five in the water, avoid or kill monsters, grab a treasure chest and return to the boat. The second level can't be passed as you physically can't get to the chest. I'm sure someone knows the name/s of these games (yes, it was ported and pirated, and yes, every one I'm aware of is broken the same way)

 

Not 2600 (7800, actually) but impossible mission lives up to its name as one piece cannot be legitimately collected, rendering that game unbeatable.

 

like I said, I give et props for being complete, even if it is one I don't care for.

[high voltage]

2 hours ago, Classic Pac said:

ET is far from the worst game that I ever played, Bugs 2600, Bubsy 3D PS1, and Wall-E DS are all far worse.

And ET on Game Cube, well, it's kinda lame (Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure)

[pacman000]

I'll say this again: If I were to make a rubric, detailing what made a good Atari game, E.T. would probably get high marks in every category. Problem is it's frustrating; a lot of subtle flaws you wouldn't think about hold it down. I've had fun with it, but it's not my favorite.