Well since no one else would volunteer to review the game for me in chat, I've decided to review it myself. There you go Tails, the review is up. Enjoy. (The things I do for a love of video gaming)
In 1982, there was no bigger movie than Steven Spielberg's E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. The movie was breaking virtually every box office record of the time period, so it should come as no real surprise to see a big name video game company like Atari forking over large sums of money to lock up the video game rights to the motion picture. And while Atari assumed the game would sell no matter how good it was, the video game public would soon prove them wrong and the game would not only become one of the most dismal failures in the history of video gaming, it would also become quite infamous for being one of the leading causes of the video game market crash of 1983/1984. The good news is, you can still probably find a brand new copy of the game in New Mexico, that is if you can round up a good shovel and a jackhammer.
Your goal in E.T. is to guide your little alien friend around the various areas of the planet, locating pieces of your transgalactic telephone in order to call your home planet. Of course you're going to be constantly pursued by FBI agents and doctors who want to stick all manner of things inside your various orifices in order to study you. This can make locating these phone parts tedious and quite painful, since each time one of them touches you you'll lose any phone parts you've already found. Once you assemble all of the telephone parts, you can then phone home and have your alien friends come pick you up from the landing zone. Sounds fun, right? Not so much.
While guiding E.T. around is easy enough, there are so many pits strung around each area that it makes it very easy to fall into them. And while you can extend E.T.s neck to levitate out of the pits, it uses up valuable amounts of your limited supply of energy. Now you can eat the Reese's Pieces that are strung around various areas, but they don't provide a lot of energy, especially when you're using up so much running from the federal agents and doctors, not to mention constantly falling into pits. The icon at the top of the screen will help provide you information about where you're going and what special powers you can use, but most of the game is about wandering around and dropping down into pits to find phone parts which quickly becomes both repetitive and tedious. Couple all of this with the fact that even if you are lucky enough to reach the mother ship, you're reward is basically just to do the whole thing all over again.
The familiar E.T. music at the beginning of the game is quite nice, but there's not much in the way of music or sound effects after that. And what little there is certainly isn't impressive in the least. The visuals are about the same as the audio presentation as it's minimal in most cases, even by Atari 2600 standards. You know you're in trouble when the title screen is the highlight of the game from an audio/visual standpoint.
It's easy to see that E.T. was a rush job from Atari to capitalize on the popularity of the motion picture, and while I'm sure there were plenty of good intentions when Atari put this whole disaster together, the end result is one of the worst Atari 2600 titles to come out of the era and a game that deserves much of the ridiculing it tends to garner, even still to this very day. It might seem like a bit of an exaggeration to label the game as a major reason for the crash of the gaming market, but after a few plays of the game, it's easy to understand why so many people feel that way.
Corbie i cannot believe you actually reviewed this. And for me of all people man I swear you got Guts Very nice review. But, I know that had to be torture for you .
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I had to give it a 2. The title screen an music alone deserved a point and the fact that I did enjoy making ET's neck go up and down should account for something. Call me silly, but I've played plenty of sh*t worse than ET. Some quite recently in fact.
Nice review, Corbie; though i'd probably bump it up a point or two just for my own personal nostalgia. I remember being so excited getting this game. My parents got it for me when we were out clothes shopping at like Macys or something, and back in those days, a lot of department stores sold Atari and game stuff in with their electronics section. Waiting the next hour or so while my parents finished up shopping was the longest hour ever, as i stared at the box intently. I still did end up enjoying the game (hey, i was 7 and i loved ET), and despite it's overall crappiness, it does hold some warm memories for me.
And yes, Amidar for 2600 was/is one of the worst games of all time, easily.
@Corbie.... oh I was just messing with you. But it still is kinda funny that even with the new tech we have today developers can still release crap so horrible that a Atari 2600 game puts it to shame lol.
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@Corbie: That bit about New Mexico was never proven (I know, I checked) and if it were, then all the games were smashed together and covered in concrete.
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Topic: E.T. (Atari 2600) Review
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