E.T. The Video Game

[shatterstar69]

This game has gotten a horrible rap and is often blamed for the first video game crash in the mid 80’s before Nintendo came along, but how many of you actually owned and played it?  *sheepishly raises hand*

[hoshichiri]

I'm far too young to have owned it 'back in the day', but it's been in my Atari collection since freshman year of high school, when I picked it up as a prop for a presentation on the history of videogames... meaning I've had it about 2 decades longer than I've had a working Atari.


I would give the game a big ol' 'meh' on the review scale. Like many Atari games, it's incomprehensible without the instructions. Once you know what you're supposed to be doing, it's not that terrible- just boring with poor controls. I think the bigger issue is one of timing... being a high-profile release at a time when the market was drowning in bad third party schlock, the dissapointment reverberated far more strongly than it would have otherwise. It's not a horrific eldritch horror that destroyed the US console market- merely the straw the broke the camel's back.

[undertakerprime]

*raises hand*

My first console was an Atari 2600, and yes, I owned ET. Naturally, I was too young to understand the difference between good and bad game design, so I just thought it was really hard and I just wasn’t that good at it. I tried to like it but I never had much fun with it. Of course it was years later I found out about its extremely short development time and the other aspects of its troubled creation.

[aliensstudios]

I got it rather recently and honestly, it's not really a bad game. I can understand the frustration on the 1983 consumer's part for it's general difficulty and nonintuitive gameplay, but as someone who sat down, played it and completed it, I can say I've played far worse games. The internet sort of gave it this reputation as a really bad game, but I think it was just too ambitious for the system and that day in age. It's not great mind you, but people pointing the finger at it like's it the spawn of Satan and the worst game ever just make me roll my eyes.

[bikingjahuty]

I think anyone who honestly believes it's the worst game of all time is fairly inexperienced as a gamer, given there are so, so many more worse games out there. Also, I don't know a ton about the video game crash of 83, but ET was far from being the soul reason or really the primary reason for it. Is E.T. a good game? No, but it is far from being as terrible as it's made out to be.

[mastodon]

This game has gotten a horrible rap and is often blamed for the first video game crash in the mid 80’s before Nintendo came along, but how many of you actually owned and played it?  *sheepishly raises hand*

I owned ET as a child. I did enjoy it. With that being said there wasnt a whole lot of games to compare them too. Even far fewer movies games. Raiders of the Lost Ark for 2600 was kind fun/bad/hard all at once.

[mastodon]

*raises hand*

My first console was an Atari 2600, and yes, I owned ET. Naturally, I was too young to understand the difference between good and bad game design, so I just thought it was really hard and I just wasn’t that good at it. I tried to like it but I never had much fun with it. Of course it was years later I found out about its extremely short development time and the other aspects of its troubled creation.

@OP, this is a quality reply. This guy sums it up well. Also one thing to consider is ET was a HUGE movie back in the day. HUGE. I still love Drew Berrymore, lol.

[epicninjask123]

I'm 21, so predictably everything Atari-related is beyond my first-hand experience. Hell, I've never even seen ET the movie. That said, by the time I do branch out into retro collecting, ET will be a high priority for me to get simply because of the story behind it. I've read every article I can find about the video game crash, seen every documentary, studied everyone's analysis, and the overwhelming consensus is that ET did not cause it... market oversaturation and a lack of quality assurance did. ET was just a scapegoat, or the straw that broke the camel's back. And I'm going to be candid, of all the games I've seen, ET strikes me as incredibly amazing considering it was developed basically from scratch, in only five weeks, without modern development tools, environments, libraries, assets and etc.

[98dgreen]

Pac Man is far worse

[oldgamerz]

Ok so the YouTube video I watched on E.T the Atari 2600 game (about a year ago) said that many people didn't know how to play E.T because maybe? barely anyone ever read the E.T manual that came with the new copies of the game

Hey from since some of you mentioned that you played and finished E.T the video game and seeing the game being played about a year ago on YouTube makes me want to play it even more now.

The original version of Action 52 for the NES, I heard was a broken menace. and included mostly games that could not be finished, unlike the E.T game (in which actually worked) according to what I heard so far. I actually would like to play E.T. the video game or at lease emulate the game myself.

The NES might have better graphics but I don't like to play most platform NES games currently. I happen to love Atari games but only if I can use a D-pad or a paddle controller, I am not too much of a fan of the Atari 2600 joystick

[wolff242]

I played it when it came out, and I'm surprised by the responses here. I've ALWAYS said that I actually really liked ET, and everyone would jump on me. At least now people acknowledge it's at least playable, lol. I was maybe 7 or 8 when it came out, so keep that in mind. Good for a kid that age. I found the difficulty kinda rewarding once I figured it out. When the FBI agent came on the screen it was panic time, lol. i'd run and fall, and keep trying to get away.

[theflea]

E.T. gets a bad rap as "The Worst Video Game Ever" but in reality its just an okay game.
Not the worst by far, there are games on Atari and other consoles that are far worse then E.T.
I got my 1st copy back when I was a kid in the 80s and even beat it. I honestly like E.T. better then Raiders of the Lost Ark and Sword Quest.
E.T. reminds me a lot of Superman on Atari 2600, again a meh game that you can beat and odds are never care about playing again.
But Superman doesn't get the Hate E.T. does mainly because people blame the 1983 Video game crash on it.
Is it a good game? No, its just okay.

[shatterstar69]

Great responses!  I remember seeing E.T. when I was 8 years old and I got the ET game for Christmas.  I actually beat the game multiple times because ET was my favorite movie at the time and I don’t think it deserves the bad rap it gets.  Granted it wasn’t a great game but definitely not the worst

[weirdfeline]

It's crazy that in 2019 some are still naive enough to claim this as one of the worst.

[mastafafik]

I have this game and have played few times. Not so bad.