Topic: E T for the Atari 2600

I know some of you have to had played this game at least once and/or grew up with it or with the Atari 2600. Honestly, what's your true opinion of this game and do you think it lives up to its history as one of the games that crashes the industry back in the early/mid 80's? Personally, having grown up with this game and playing it back when I was a child I grew up loving it and didn't realize until around the late 90's that the game came with such a stigma about it. Same goes for Pac-Man for the 2600 too, I just had no clue. But despite its marred history I still enjoy the game and wrote up a review of it over at [Link removed] contesting its poorly viewed roots.

I suppose if I took the rose colored glasses off I'd think a bit differently about the game but there were dozens of games on multiple consoles at the time of E.T's release that I felt were horribly produced and damn near unplayable, something I feel this game is wrongfully adorned. What do you guys think of E.T for the Atari and how did you view it as a child versus how you view it as an adult?

I'm interested in seeing your comments.

Take it elsewhere. Creating a post just to ask people to check out your site is considered advertising here and spam. Put that link in your signature instead.

Completely ignoring his advertising, ET shouldn't get the flack it does. It's not a bad game, just a super cryptic game if you play without any manual or knowledge on the mechanics. But yeah it also popped the video game bubble back in the 80s so people just associate it with dooms day.

One thing that could have helped the game tremendously would be a scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen with hints or instructions on what to do. Atari had the capability to do this but few used it.

Cryptic is a good way to describe it. You have to find all the pieces of the phone to call your mothership and there isn't a lot of help finding those items along the way. Is the game bad? No. Is it cryptic? Yes.

I just feel as though it has a bad rap for no other reason than "it's cool to hate it".