FRUSTRATING DIFFICULTY! Getting all the phone pieces and calling the mothership was almost impossible while E.T. is being chased by a doctor (who returns E.T. to the "downtown" playfield) and an FBI agent who will confiscate all of E.T.'s phone pieces! Add to the fact that it was very easy to fall in those god-awfully-annoying pits, and you have a recipe for disaster.
E.T. was such a huge disaster for Atari that Atari had to put LOADS of unsold E.T. carts (along with other unsold carts like the dreadful Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man and unsold Atari consoles and computers) to a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico, have the merchandise crushed by a steamroller, and buried under several slabs of concrete. Crappy games like E.T. singlehandedly brought down Atari, the video game empire of the 1970s and the early 1980s.
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Ah. E.T. for the Atari. Such a famous game for many reasons. As I kid in 1982, the game itself wasn't as bad as to me as many of the current reviewers and other players were stating. And now that I own it again in my recent Atari collection, I am still finding it fun to play despite the flaws.The game is pretty easy...you collect three pieces of a phone, find the correct call spot and then head to the correct landing site while avoiding pits (often annoying), Government Agent (a man in a coat) and Scientists (a doctor.) You can also collect Reese's Pieces and eat them for energy or collect enough to give to Elliot for phone pieces (so says the instructions) and to gain more points at the end of the game.
The game is remarkably crude, even for Atari standards at the time. It is also very illogical at times, as you have to find hot spots to get hints for phone pieces, send the agents back to "Washington", call Elliot and even transport to another screen. This totally makes no sense.
Yet, once you do figure out how to play it, it is actually quite enjoyable and addictive. There is also a pit where a flower is located. I believe if you fall in there with TWO pieces of the phone and make the flower grow, Indiana Jones will appear.
Yes, this is far from the best game ever made and it honestly does deserve most of the "worst game" awards. But if you take time to play it for what it is, it is actually quite fun.
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I will not talk about game politics, the effect E.T. had on the gaming industry, or babble random internet memes here. This is a review of the game itself.E.T. puts you in control of the alien. Based on the movie of the same name, you are stranded on Earth and must assemble a "phone" to call your space ship to pick you up.
E.T. is very much a "read the *bleeping* manual" game. Using the button and pushing directions accomplishes many things, depending on what screen you are on and what symbol is displayed at the top of the screen. Correctly using these powers will give you a much easier time and make the game vastly less frustrating to play. Perhaps most importantly of all, the secret to successfully levitating out of pits without falling back in is explained in detail near the back of the manual.
Phone pieces are hidden in pits. Contrary to popular belief, it is not a good idea to randomly fall in pits until you find a piece. Use your powers to locate a piece for you.
Each action performed consumes energy. You can use candy to regain energy when the correct power is displayed, or use them as a source of points. When you run out of energy, Elliot will revive you a few times, and finding a flower will grant an extra life as well.
With all the ways to use powers, E.T. does have a surprising amount of depth to it. You need to use powers wisely to avoid getting phone pieces stolen, or (worst of all) prevent humans from showing up and scaring the spaceship away just before it picks you up.
Where the game really fails though is fun factor. I'm not going to lie, levitating out of pits is not fun. Some screens feel cheap, with pits touching the edge of the screen causing instant drops. And there are some bugs related to how you leave screens. From the manual: "A game ends when E.T. runs out of energy or when you decide to quit playing." It's like they knew ahead of time the game won't keep people entertained for long.
Graphics and sound are not all that great. The forest area is the best looking by far. The game does have a title screen and music, which is a nice plus.
There are difficulty settings available, to get rid of the more troublesome humans. If you want an easy mode to learn the basic game mechanics, go to game mode 3.
E.T. is worth playing through a few times, assuming you take the time to read how to actually play the game. Once you get the hang of it, the game isn't very hard to complete.
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A video game based off E.T. How bad could it be, right? Well if it was made today not very, aside from Steven Spielberg releasing a new "digitally enhanced version" every six months or so. But back in 1982...well let's just say that this video game killed atari. It was the final nail in their coffin. First, if you have the instruction booklet that came with it, throw it away. The game designer and instruction booklet designer only had one meeting. Everything the booklet designer was told to put into the booklet was changed by the time the game was released. The number of points for doing various things doesn't add up the way the booklet says it should and so on. Second, the entire game is nothing than E.T. walking around, falling in holes, collecting pieces of a telephone, and trying to avoid thieves who stole the pieces of the telephone causing you to start over. Huh? What does the thief have to do with the movie? I don't remember Wynona Ryder staring in E.T. lol Seriously though, once you collect all the pieces of the phone guess what happens? Does E.T. go home? NO! a flower appears with the game designers initials in the center of it. LAME! You run around collecting pieces of a telephone by falling in holes while avoiding thieves...yes, that's exactly what happened in the movie too, oh wait, it didn't. Thy should have titled the game Alien Phone...it would have sold better I'm sure, well at least people wouldn't have gotten their hopes so high just to be let down.I own 50 Atari games and I'd gladly play ALL of them before playing this one again. I only own it because, for some reason, whenever I tell people I do they think it's cool to actually own a copy of it. Why?
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As a kid, I owned a copy of this infamous game. It has been well described by other owners and raised the bar for biggest fail. As with most, I received it as a Christmas gift from my Mother who loved E.T. I played it for a few minutes on Christmas and a few times afterwords. It was never really fun to play, but I was able to call the mother ship and save E.T. from the evil humans. I didn't find it to be a difficult game, but it did raise my anxiety level every time I fell into those nasty pits which were a royal pain to get out of.All-in-all, This is one of the most famous games of all time and very classic gamer should own a copy.
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