E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

It's no wonder Atari buried thousands of these cartridges in a landfill. Not only did it drive the once mighty Atari company to bankruptcy, but it even caused the great video game crash of 1983 that nearly destroyed the entire business in America. Yes, it was truly THAT bad.

Your objective is to guide ET across multiple screens on a single level to collect three separate phone parts to phone home and escape planet Earth, all the while avoiding government agents and scientists trying to hinder your progress, as well as holes inexplicably dug everywhere. Your life meter is displayed at the bottom of the screen. If it reaches zero, Elliot comes along to revive you. If you lose three lives, it's game over. That's all you do.

Production for this game took a mere five weeks, and it shows. First of all, the gameplay is totally aggravating. You'll be constantly falling into the holes that are not only numerous but very difficult to avoid due to their size and prevalence. The poor hit detection and clunky controls only made it more infuriatingly difficult. But that's not all. Even for an Atari game from the 80s, the graphics are bad. ET is just a sickly green blob with eyes. The level designs are completely dull and bland, the sound effects and music are poor. By comparison, Donkey Kong Jr. And Mrs. Pac-Man, both also released in 1982, looked and sounded far better.

In the end, this was just a disastrous attempt at a cash grab of an otherwise awesome and successful movie. If you're a hardcore ET fan, don't even play this for free if possible. Just stick with the movie.

OK. I know how many people think that E.T is Rubbish and the Worst Game ever but it is OK for Atari 2600 Standards. There is a plot and it was one of the first games to have an ending video. The holes are annoying and the game glitches and has its fault but it is OK. If you bought it when it came out in 1982 with the instructions then you would actually know what to do. Games on the Atari 2600 that are worse include Custers Revenge, The Kool Aid game, and Beat em and Eat Em just to name a Few. I know that it isn't Adventure or Pitfall but it is alright. I have finished this game a few times so it is finishable. Thats about it. It is OK for its time which was during the great video game depression.

The programmer had 5 weeks to design, program & test this game so that Atari could get it manufactured & into stores in time for Christmas. Many blame this one game with crashing the video game market in the mid-80's. While this game helped kill Atari, what crashed things was lots of crappy games from over 30 companies that had jumped on board hoping to make a quick buck. One of those companies, U.S. Games, was a division of Quaker Oats!

It is believed that ET: The Extra Terrestrial helped bring about the video game crash of 1984. Many feel that after having been burned by the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man that buyers adopted a 'once bitten, twice shy' attitude about buying this game. I, too, have played this so I feel your pain. The guy who programed this also made Raiders of the Lost Ark and Yar's Revenge for Atari 2600. Problem here was he only had 5-6 weeks to design, program and test this game (they wanted it in stores by Christmas and he was given the job in late July).

It's honestly one of the worst Atari 2600 games, and it's really poorly gameplay, the visible and invisible holes everywhere, and the confusing directions, it's honestly and admittedly a broken down game.