April Game of the Month: E.T - The Extra Terrestrial

[lilbud]

E.T: The Extra Terrestrial

Developer: Howard Scott Warshaw

Publisher: Atari

Platform: Atari 2600

E.T: The Extra Terrestrial was released in 1982 for the Atari 2600. It is widely considered to be one of the greatest games of all time. It is considered one of the pillars of gaming and is credited with reviving the struggling 2600 in its later years. The main point of the game, much like the film, is to help E.T return home. You must do this by collecting phone pieces that are located in holes in the ground. Also, much like real life, you have to avoid the government who wants to take E.T for scientific observation.

Manual:

Video Review:

Game of the Month Challenge

Due to a lack of achievements, proof of completion will consist of a polaroid picture of your tube television. Have Fun, and don't take any crap from anybody.

[mediamogul]

@lilbud

Excellent choice! I made a flower grow in the game once. I think that means I beat it.

[mitu]

@lilbud The video review was spot on, can't wait to play this game. Btw, I finally finished the February game of the month a week ago, so much fun and giggles with Samus and his friends.

[PokeEngineer]

@lilbud said in April Game of the Month: E.T - The Extra Terrestrial:

You must do this by collecting phone pieces that are located in holes in the ground.

It turns out that the phone pieces weren't the only things that were found in a hole in the ground. Eh, ehhhh... 😁

[mediamogul]

@pokeengineer

Very true. Also, that wouldn't be a bad idea for a ROM hack, where you're a retro-gamer, tasked with retrieving a full copy of E.T. from the Alamogordo landfill. Find a cartridge, box and manual, then call your mom and proceed to the parking lot to be picked up before Nolan Bushnell and Howard Scott Warshaw take the items from you and cover up their mistakes.

[lilbud]

I think by now most of y'all realize this is a joke. If not, this is an april fools joke. Voting for the real April GOTM will end on Tuesday around 7:30 am

https://www.strawpoll.me/15391653

[gomisensei]

@mediamogul I believe recent events have shown that nolan bushnell doesn't cover up anything...

[lilbud]

Okay, I'll call it early.

The (real) April GoTM is Earthbound!

[lilbud]

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/17174/game-of-the-month-links

Made an overarching post with everything you might wanna know.

[obsidianspider]

I see that the list is all Nintendo games! We need some love for other console makers. Maybe next month.

[lilbud]

Here is the link for the REAL game of the month: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/17226/april-2018-earthbound

[Loggahead]

Dunno, why this game gets such a bad rap and commonly shows up on "worst video games of all time" lists. I actually loved this game as a kid. When I was growing up, I loved E.T. and loved my Atari 2600 and as a result loved this game as well!

It was one of the first games I remember playing that had an end goal to accomplish. The gameplay was great! You were E.T. and you had to collect all of the pieces to your phone so you could "phone home" and then go find the landing spot of your mothership to beat the game. All the while you had to avoid the scientists who wanted to experiment on you and you collected / ate Reeses Pieces for health (another great movie tie in!). The game made sense, it was fun and the graphics weren't horrible for a 2600 game. I loved it.

I think the port of Pacman on the 2600 was way more of an atrocity than what people made E.T. out to be... just my two cents.

Now, true 2600 greatness for me? Pitfall II. That was my 2600 "Dark Side of The Moon", a masterpiece.

[mediamogul]

@loggahead said in April Game of the Month: E.T - The Extra Terrestrial:

Dunno, why this game gets such a bad rap

It's not a bad game at all. It was very ambitious for the time and the events followed the film much more closely than most other movie-based games . That said, I think it's easy to see where the stigma comes from, even if it was unwarranted. I believe it's best described in this clip from 'The Video Game Years'.

[Loggahead]

@mediamogul said in April Game of the Month: E.T - The Extra Terrestrial:

@loggahead said in April Game of the Month: E.T - The Extra Terrestrial:

Dunno, why this game gets such a bad rap

It's not a bad game at all. It was very ambitious for the time and the events followed the film much more closely than most other movie-based games . That said, I think it's easy to see where the stigma comes from, even if it was unwarranted. I believe it's best described in this clip from 'The Video Game Years'.

Hah! I should have actually said "I hate it that E.T. get's such a bad rap". I do remember the story about over printing copies and it singlehandedly causing the video game crash, etc.

What's funny is that even someone in this video labeled it as "obtuse" and seemed confused by some of the mechanics. I actually had read the manual of this game so I knew how to play it and understood it as a 5/6 year old. I could see how someone could be a tad confused if they got the game secondhand without the manual though.

Haters will always hate, but I loved me some E.T. on 2600!

[mediamogul]

@loggahead

I've always wondered what Henry Thomas thought of the game. He was in several Intellivision promotional spots that year with George Plimpton that prohibited him from appearing in the various ET Atari commercials for better or worse. However there was this...

[Loggahead]

So awesome. Cloak and Dagger... that poster brings back such memories!

[mediamogul]

@loggahead

That used to be one of my go-to rentals when I was a kid when I couldn't decide on anything else. The Atari 5200 'Cloak & Dagger' game they play in the movie was actually the arcade version running on original hardware just off screen. An actual 5200 game was planned and well into development, but like hundreds of other titles, it was shelved due to the video game crash of 1983. Still, we can now play the original through MAME and it runs very well in RetroPie.