Poll: Is ET as bad as people claim?

[high voltage]

Here's a little story from the Digital Press Collector's Guide

Shame they got the name mixed up with Activision, but never mind that, it's a girl player having fun with ET

 

 

 

 

A girl? and mastering ET, how stupid were those boy kids way back?

[Unbeliever]

Great article! Thanks for sharing it.

[bennybingo]

Shame they got the name mixed up with Activision, but never mind that...

Or, the fact that the writer claims to have bought the game in 1982 for $8.00. I find that difficult to believe. Maybe in the second half of 1983 or even later, but in 1982, that game hit the market and was a top seller @ $40 to $50 each!

[Rhomaios]

Or, the fact that the writer claims to have bought the game in 1982 for $8.00. I find that difficult to believe. Maybe in the second half of 1983 or even later, but in 1982, that game hit the market and was a top seller @ $40 to $50 each!

 

To be fair, she doesn't say she got it in 1982, but that's when it came out and when she wanted it. Also, was K-Mart a discount store in the early 80s?

[+Gemintronic]

I think this article is the fairest of them all:

http://www.neocomputer.org/projects/et/

 

My take is that E.T. fell into the early realm of must read the instructions games and got a bad rap.

 

UPDATE: I declined to vote since there is the middle ground of: "Meh. it is what it is. There's hyperbole on both positive and negative camps"

[+thegoldenband]

^Agreed on both counts. I was around 7 years old when I got E.T., and I had no problems at all with the game -- indeed, I enjoyed it. But crucially, I had the manual and was willing to read it! I think a lot of people were turned off by the game because they simply didn't want to be bothered figuring it out, but personally I don't have a lot of sympathy for the "I should never have to read the manual to play a game" crowd.

 

Once I got used to the pit layout, the main thing that irritated me about E.T. was probably the weird topology of the game world. I never felt comfortable with that in Superman, and I didn't much like it in E.T. either, though at least E.T.'s cube-based structure makes more sense.

[Rhomaios]

I think this article is the fairest of them all:

http://www.neocomputer.org/projects/et/

 

My take is that E.T. fell into the early realm of must read the instructions games and got a bad rap.

 

UPDATE: I declined to vote since there is the middle ground of: "Meh. it is what it is. There's hyperbole on both positive and negative camps"

 

A few posts up I posted the link to the AtariAge thread that guy made, if you want to look at what he said further.

[+wood_jl]

It sure isn't a "great" game, or even close to being one of the gems. But it seems as if many people (1) in the media, (2) on the internet, and especially (3) in the internet-media - have never even played the game. They do this for anything that you could consider "imperfect."

 

They do the same thing with the Atari 5200 - go on-and-on about how bad it sucks, when most of the young punks have never even seen one, much less played one. They just ape back what someone else (in similar circumstances to their own) parroted to them from some arbitrary "source."

[Andromeda Stardust]

Here's a little story from the Digital Press Collector's Guide

Shame they got the name mixed up with Activision, but never mind that, it's a girl player having fun with ET

 

 

 

 

A girl? and mastering ET, how stupid were those boy kids way back?

Wow, great article. I'm gonna have to pop mine in sometime and actually play it past the title screen..

[AtariLeaf]

 

You spend 5 minutes learning how to use a joystick properly.

 

I always wondered if people who constantly fall into the wells are just as uncoordinated when they play other games. If they can jump on the heads of crocodiles and jump over holes without falling in when playing Pitfall, they should be able to zip around the wells at high speed without falling in when playing E.T.

 

Yea, I suck at that too

[BrianC]

I think the poll should have had another choice. I don't think ET is great, but it's not as bad as it's made out to be either. Odd how the poll just asks "Is ET a bad game" when the topic is "Is ET as bad as people claim?".

Edited April 28, 2014 by BrianC

[davyK]

Anyone who thinks ET is the worst game ever (never mind worst on the 2600) either needs to actually play it, or needs their head examined. There are far worse games on the 2600 and other platforms.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Athena for NES comes to mind as the glitchiest game ever...

[bradhig]

It's hard when your trying to call the spaceship or waiting for it to land on game 1. I don't know how many times the ship wouldn't land because a bad guy showed up or I couldn't call it for the same reason.

[+Random Terrain]

To be fair, she doesn't say she got it in 1982, but that's when it came out and when she wanted it. Also, was K-Mart a discount store in the early 80s?

It would have helped if she would have said "months later" or "a year or two later" or something like that. Did she add 8 dollars to the 10 dollars that she already had or did I read that wrong? And did she say that E.T. was made by Activision?

 

The way she wrote it, it sounds like she bought it in 1982, but we all know that the game was released in December of 1982 and most people had to pay over 30 bucks for it, including my family:

 

atariage.com/magazines/magazine_page.html?MagazineID=4&CurrentPage=16

[Osgeld]

and yes kmart was a discount store since forever, it was their entire model, like a mini department store (ie sears) with more economical but limited choices

Edited April 29, 2014 by Osgeld

[Andromeda Stardust]

It would have helped if she would have said "months later" or "a year or two later" or something like that. Did she add 8 dollars to the 10 dollars that she already had or did I read that wrong? And did she say that E.T. was made by Activision?

 

The way she wrote it, it sounds like she bought it in 1982, but we all know that the game was released in December of 1982 and most people had to pay over 30 bucks for it, including my family:

 

atariage.com/magazines/magazine_page.html?MagazineID=4&CurrentPage=16

If she paid $8, I suspect it was post 1983 crash when stores were liquidating stock. Memories can be fuzzy, especially when you're that young. $2 for a Trapper Keeper, $8 for ET is enough to buy with a ten and some spare change. As a child I got a piddly 50 cents allowance but my mom would match whatever I could scrounge up if she approved the purchase. No NES though I begged them at Christmas every year. Always got Lego sets instead to get my mind off video games, but hey, I loved Legos too. By the time I was a teen in the 90s, I wasn't on a fixed allowance anymore, but since I was old enough to go to the store and run errands by myself, my parents would give me a ten or twenty here and there to pick up groceries or buy a snack. I would always bring home the change but they usually forgot and let me keep it. Since I wasn't constantly gorging on junk food or buying crap at the mall like most teens did, and necessities like clothes and stuff my mom would buy for me on shopping trips, the monies and loose change from errand runs on my bike saved up over time, and on occasion I was able to afford something nice for myself or go on a date.

Edited April 29, 2014 by stardust4ever

[killersquirel]

If you're a gamer and you can't handle playing E.T. just hang up your controller. Give it up, as video games are obviously outside your grasp. This isn't a sad thing, it's just a revelation that you have zero coordination and perhaps should try to master the art of tying shoe laces first.

 

-mike

[TrekkiELO]

 

No, it's an awesome piece of history and needs to be played to be fully appreciated!

 

Edited April 29, 2014 by TrekkiELO

[glazball]

 

I am interested to hear from people who are not sheeple but have actually at least tried the game. Should be interesting to hear what actual Atari gamers think of E.T.

 

I voted Yes. I'm actually surprised more of you really defend E.T.! As someone who spent MANY hours playing E.T. back then with my huge extended family, I'll just say that I disliked E.T. and all my family and friends/neighbors did also. It was known for being bad. And frustrating. Do I think it should be buried forever? No, that's censorship! But I do agree that no one should have to play the abomination called E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. It's just awful! Awful. I just assumed that was obvious to anyone who had played the game back then. Raiders of the Lost Ark was hard to figure out but still a good game. E.T. simply provided no moments of enjoyment, ever.

 

To think of people digging through heaps of dirt and trash to find a crusty E.T. cartridge is truly laughable. It's a bad game.

[+Random Terrain]

I voted Yes. I'm actually surprised more of you really defend E.T.! As someone who spent MANY hours playing E.T. back then with my huge extended family, I'll just say that I disliked E.T. and all my family and friends/neighbors did also. It was known for being bad. And frustrating. Do I think it should be buried forever? No, that's censorship! But I do agree that no one should have to play the abomination called E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. It's just awful! Awful. I just assumed that was obvious to anyone who had played the game back then. Raiders of the Lost Ark was hard to figure out but still a good game. E.T. simply provided no moments of enjoyment, ever.

 

To think of people digging through heaps of dirt and trash to find a crusty E.T. cartridge is truly laughable. It's a bad game.

 

Are you one of the people who constantly fell into the wells and had a hard time getting out? Did you know how to use the power zones? It would help to know exactly what was frustrating for you. As I've said many times before, you only have to enter 3 wells during a round as long as you avoid the FBI agent and the danger areas.

 

If you play the way this video shows, it shouldn't be frustrating at all:

 

youtube.com/watch?v=mcAoIThBDyA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAoIThBDyA

[Andromeda Stardust]

^^RT, that's the third time you've posted that same vid. Just because someone out there can speedrun the game to a digitized commentary, does not mean that everyone who plays it can beat it in 2 minutes. And length of time required to speed run a game (with practice) is not an indicator of how good or bad it is.

Edited April 29, 2014 by stardust4ever

[Mxyzptlk]

I thought it sucked big time when I was a kid after my friends and I could not get out of the stupid wells or pits that were seemingly everywhere. We enjoyed Adventure (the most) Combat, Outlaw, Raiders etc... E.T. was just a waste of time back then and zero fun. I have since played it and finished it as an adult and still do not care for it much. Worst game... no, but still not a fan.

[glazball]

Random Terrain, I spent a good hour reading the E.T. sections of your site and while doing so, I could almost convince myself that E.T. -was- fun. It definitely brought back a lot of nostagia, and it's great to read someone who truly loved/loves the game. Major complaints are all addressed, like the awful collision detection (something I had almost mentioned earlier but didn't).

 

I have played it as an adult (it's been several years) and I still didn't like it. We were right even as children: E.T. is a bad game!

[+Random Terrain]

^^RT, that's the third time you've posted that same vid. Just because someone out there can speedrun the game to a digitized commentary, does not mean that everyone who plays it can beat it in 2 minutes. And length of time required to speed run a game (with practice) is not an indicator of how good or bad it is.

 

I'm not going to create a new video for every damn post. Not everyone sees every one of my posts unless they are a stalker. And screw the commentary, it shows how to play the game. It's not a speed run. That's how I've basically played since the game was released (after spending a little time getting used to the game). The video shows how you can zip around without falling into the wells and how to use the Find Phone Piece Zone and the Send Humans Back Zone. It's not a "look what I can do" video, it's a "look what you can do" video. I didn't need much practice to learn how to play and other people can do the same with a small amount of practice as long as they have basic video game skills. A person who has slow reactions or is clumsy with a controller will probably be bad at a lot of video games, not just E.T.