@@MatCaveGaming Yes it's true. Very helpful in the later levels when the game gets very hard. Plus any reeces you give Elliot turns into more points at Elliot's house after the ship takes you home. You'll see his mouth symbol munch as your score goes up. Extending ET's head before you land at the bottom of any pit saves you energy. The games is fun and has a lot of strategy to it. Cancel Reply
I remember playing this when I was little. I was sure I was doing something wrong. This is the most I have ever understood about the game. Thank you! Very nostalgic. Subscribed!
You never had to call for the spaceship. After you summon it from the spaceship icon spot, you had to wait at the Landing Zone Target spot. You had to evade humans until it comes, and be on the target spot when the timer runs out.
Ok, you freaked me out with that intro. I remember that Atari commercial from when it aired. It's rare to tap into the memory banks that deep. Lol. Thank you for that.
Seeing the commercial for this game brings back memories. When I was a kid, my favorite movie was E.T. the Extraterrestrial. It still is today. I was 9 and this was in 1982. I was an only child and every Friday was movie night at the theatre and the only movie I chose to watch was E.T. I saw that movie so many times that I knew all the characters lines because that was the only movie I wanted to see until it quit showing in the theatre. I also had an Atari 2600 and when I heard that E.T. was coming for it I was exstatic! So for Christmas that year that was the only thing I wanted was that game. I cared about nothing else. I got it, played for 5 min and never played it again. It sucked! When I came down from my room after playing it for such a short time, my mom asked if I was done with it already. I told her it sucked. She didn't think it could be that bad, so I showed her. She agreed. Since she kept the receipt we went back to the store she bought it from the next day and I chose another ont that I also wanted which was Pit Fall. If it wasn't for this game being released, then I don't think the video game crash of the 80s would have happened.
Calling Elliot scores points after the rescue for every candy he takes. If you have 9 candies and call Elliott, he’ll chase away humans and find a phone piece for ET.
Loved this when I was a kid. Still do. Part of the problem was that so few of us actually read the manual or the "hint guide" that explained a lot of how to play, as well as the different difficulty settings like other Atari games. A copy of this cart signed by Howard Scott Warshaw sits enshrined with my game collection in a laser-cut wood version of ET's spaceship. He has stated in interviews and his book that if he had just a couple more days to work on the game, several of the major complaints could have been fixed, like the hit detection for falling in to pits.
I agree. I used to enjoy this game a ton when I was a kid and played it. (When it first came out.) I spent hours on it. It was actually way ahead of its time, because it's one of the first times where a player could go exploring from one screen to another, find pieces of things and put them together. The fact that the game remembered things happening off screen and kept track of where things were was way beyond what others were doing. The blame for this game really came from the fact that Atari itself was making some really bad decisions at the time, and this game became the scape goat. It was easy to do because there were some mistakes within it, which happens when you have a shortened testing time. Games today come out with FAAAR more bugs than this had. The difference is that today they send a patch, but back then, it couldn't be changed. But in general, us kids in those days were used to just working around things, understanding and accepting the bugs, and enjoying it in spite of the problems. (We also walked to school in ten feet of snow, uphill both ways... and we LIKED it, dammit!)
I love that game, my father bring it to me that 1983 christmas, along with the great Sears Video Arcade II, my first console ever! Yes is a broken game but I remember it had a sort of ending, which it was not common in Atari games. I played it a lot! and still have it! Greetings froma 46 YO guy from Ecuador!
The holy grail of understanding this game's layout is to grab a cube (like a Rubik's cube), put the landing field on the top, the house/buildings on the bottom, and the 4 different pit fields around the 4 sides. And when elevating out of the pit, always stop right after the top, then move down onto the grass so you don't fall back in. It's not a difficult game at this point, and you should win 50% of the time (timing, of course, is everything).
I agree. This game was a lot of fun for me when I was a kid! So I think the Reese‘s Pieces that Elliot gets from you during the game are added to your final score after you “beat“ the game for all game variations. Also, in the first two game variations, you have to give Elliott Reese‘s pieces in order for him to “create“ phone pieces that you would find in the pits. Game variations after 1-2 do not have this requirement.
Ah, got ya! Okay, that makes a lot more sense! I’ve always enjoyed this game. Even my kids like it. Sure, it was a tough game, but back then, most games were.
the hum at the end only happens if you hit the button to make ETs head go up just before the spaceship picks him up. If you look closely, doing that makes it so that ET doesn't quite fit in the ship, and the hum is triggered because that's the sound made when his head extends and retracts, only at the end screen (Elliot's house) his head is stuck part way extended, hence the sound.
Hey! Great video! I really liked this game when I was a kid as well. It's just greatly misunderstood. I think I can help you with some of the things you said you didn't understand. First, the icon that gives you energy for Reese's is a mouth with a Reese's inside. So when you use that icon, you're "eating" the candy for energy. If you call Elliot and give him candy, it will count towards your score at the end of the game. At the end you'll see the mouth icon open and close for each Reese's you gave him in the game. Your score will go up for each one he eats. If you ever collect nine pieces at once and give them to Elliot, he'll give you a phone piece as well as count nine pieces towards your score at the end. When you use the spaceship icon to "phone home", you have to go to the landing site (the target) in the forest. You don't need to "use" it by raising your head... you just have to be there when the countdown hits zero. So I woudln't waste your energy on that icon. However, the ship will NOT arrive if there are any humans in the forest. So it's a good idea to know where the "go home" icon is in the forest (looks like a roman numeral three). If a human arrives, you can run there and tell them to "go home" and hopefully you can get back to the landing site and they'll be gone before the ship is scheduled to arrive.
Howard Scott Warshaw gets a lot of flack for this game, but A) It is not nearly as bad as people think it is; B) It is a pretty uncommon one because it has a full screen title screen with a picture!; and C) HSW only had FIVE WEEKS to actually make the game to have it ready for the holiday season. Most games back then took 6 months or more to create. There are MANY much worse games for the system. I think the main reason people don't like it is because it can be VERY frustrating to get E.T. out of a pit only to have him fall immediately back in. But once you learn the secret it's not too bad (Don't let go of the fire button until you are COMPLETELY clear of the pit). Practice that move over and over until you have it perfected.
It’s a tough game, especially on the main modes with the 2 people going after E.T. I’m trying to get my hands on an original manual. I would love to see how much information on how to play was in it.
I'm guess you were very young when you got it? I was 12 when it came out, so me an my friends just laughed at it, but it seemed like everyone's 5 or 6 year old little brother loved it.
I was the only one in my group of nerd friends to solve this game back in 1983. I think that made me more of a nerd. My one friend said the flower once turned into a bird. Everyone of us thought he was full of baloney. Turns out he was right. If you ate a certain amount of Reese's Pieces & fell into the hole with the dead flower, it'll turn into either a bird or the Galaga ship. Crazy.
I was there in the 80's and do not hate the game. It could not live up to its hype. That commercial was too good. I like abstract games. It reminded me of Raiders of the Lost Ark if you lost the instruction manual. However, it did earn its reputation. Up until that moment, players celebrated designers and that number was as few as one per game. In this case, Howard Scott Warshaw. Being a "programmer" in the 1980s was being a legend. When the 2600 was at its height, business and marketing people took control with unrealistic development schedules. Customers didn't reject video games, they rejected the video games ran by marketing teams and accountants. Similar analogies can be applied to the abbreviated edition of Donkey Kong (no pie level because of Christmas) and whatever excuse used for Pacman. Pacman, I hate.
That's how it was back in the day. Other than that, all we had to go on was the box art while standing at either Toys R Us or the video rental store. 🍻🕹️🎮👍
I never played this game as a kid, since we didn't have an ATARI. But when I played it 5 or 6 year ago I didn't understand the commotion. Sure you need the manual but that goes for a lot of 80s games. And when you read the manual you understand the layout of the play field and it's actually quite addictive. The only bad thing is the collision detection off the pits but nothing that another extra day of debugging couldn't have been fixed.
To leave is simple, just do what you’re doing, but don’t leave the spot. The symbol has to be stood in the whole time, and make sure the bad guys aren’t there as the ship can’t pick E.T up when they are on screen. Also you don’t have to press the fire button
From a player's standpoint, the issues with the game were 1) It didn't follow the movie that closely and 2) It was so freaking hard (I only was able to complete it on the easiest difficulty). From an economic standpoint, even though it sold moderately well, Atari expected to sell (and manufactured) an unrealistic amount of them, and so they were not able to recoup the manufacturing expenses, which sent the company into a tailspin, contributing to the videogame crash.
If they would have just given the developer more time and not worried so much about the timing of the release, we'd be talking a whole other story, or quite possibly, no story at all. Pretty amazing what an impact this game had.
I got an Atari for Christmas 1982, when I was 5. My family was poor, ET was one of the only games I had, and the frustration it caused probably explains why I didn't become a gamer.
Definitely a case of RTFM syndrome with this game... I did read it, but after I did, I only liked Game 3, where Elliott was the only human to show up. The scientist and the FBI agent were both _way_ too annoying. It was hard enough trying to find all the phone pieces, the Call Ship zone and the Landing zone before E.T.'s energy count dropped to 0 anyway, didn't need the other two nuisances making life difficult. Lol. I did try Games 1 (everybody there) and 2 (just Elliott and the FBI agent) a few times just to see if I could and to be able to say that I tried, but Game 3 was (and still is to this day) my favorite way to play Atari E.T. (P.S. Emulators are a godsend nowadays.).
It became an early youtube Millennial fad to say "E.T. is the worst game ever". But back in the 80's it was just considered an average ok game that required reading the manual to beat. The fact it had opening sceen music and an ending made it interesting since only several Atari games could be beat.
@@MatCaveGamingthe game also has an Easter Egg where you can meet the Yars character from Yars revenge at the bottom of one of the pits that appears as a flower first. I love stuff like that
@MatCaveGaming either you have to touch the flower or do some kind of code with the joystick and the flower turns into the Yars character and also the Indiana Jones character can appear too. I never knew about these Easter eggs until the internet age like most.
Nah, it's a bad game. Now considering Howard Warshaw only had 5 weeks to create the entire game from scratch, it's an excellent attempt at a franchise adaptation, but from a game play perspective the game is boring as hell. The game starts and you have no idea what to do. As a kid, I'm not sure I've even seen the movie at that point so I had zero guide. Now starting a game with zero instruction isn't a bad thing and can lead to discovery. A good example is The Legend of Zelda. In ET you can figure out a few things. ? shows the right pit. Collect items in pits and black dots and that is about it. The rest or just random symbols. No indication of how many items you need, where to go and why the hell does that guy keep taking me to the Roman buildings? The fact than 40 years later and you still don't know how half of the mechanics work is a testament to how unintuitive this game is. On top of that it is just boring. Falling into a pit is the most action that happens. Oh no, it's the 10th time falling into a pit. How will I get out of this one? Extends neck. Now compare ET to most other good game of the time. Defender, Missile Command, Plaque Attack, Horse Racing, Barnstorming, Jungle Hunt, Mouse Trap and many more. You turn on the game and instant action. You have an idea of what you need to do. You know what squares are bad and what shapes are good. People returned ET to stores for a reason.
If this game got the development it should have, it really could have been great. I still enjoy the game and have since it first came out, but even still, it is full of flaws. The amount of frustration that players dealt with was more than enough to make them quit playing it. I don't recall how much information was in the instructions manual. Many Atari 2600 games had more than enough info on how to play within the manuals, but my manual is long since gone.
I played this alot growing up. NOT the worst game ever made, that award gos to fortnight. 98% of people that say its bad, never played it and can't make their own opinion, youtube does that for them. Anyway, the brown coat guy is the fbi and the white coat guy is a scientist. Calling Eliot is for a phone piece, collect Reese's call him. Once you make the phone, find the ship icon call it, you must be on the target landing zone for pick up at the end of the timer. The question marks make phone pieces flash, the circle with a dot is to eat Reese's to regain health, the face is to call Eliot, the III symbol makes the fbi and scientist leave you alone breifly. The arrows will move you to that location. Thats pretty much all you need to know.
Definitely the part of the game that made tons of players throw the joystick. LOL. I have found that getting out as close to the sides as possible works best.
There's a nice rom out there that fixes a lot of the game's issues including ET's colour and you don't fall into pits unless your feet touch them. I imagine Howard would have sorted all the gameplay out had he had more than five weeks to actually write the thing! I still think it's a great game to have come out with in the ridiculous time frame he was given.
I never had this game for my Atari, but from the description and screenshots, it always seemed like it was along the same lines as Raiders of the Lost Ark. I DID have that game, and I really liked it, even though without the manual, it was just as confusing as E.T.
In one of the pits you'll find a flower. This doesn't show up when you use the question mark. What it does is give ET extra times he can run out of energy. Heh. Now try raiders of the lost ark for the 2600 next. THAT game will give you fits, and I'd love to see you do a video on that.
The Game is a classic, The business decisions surrounding it's release were bad. Between this and Pac-Man, Atari was counting on them selling around 3 million consoles, so they made WAY too many copies. They didn't end up in that landfill for being bad games.
I loved this game as a kid - I never understood ‘the worst game ever’ title. As an Atari VCS game, it was fun and challenging, like Adventure but better. You had to read the manual.
E.T. was one of the best games on the 2600, i had it as a young young kid, understood it, enjoyed it, finished it. Anyone who dislikes it has no brain as far as I am concerned.
I wouldn't go as far as saying they have no brain, but I will say that most people that disliked this game back then had given up on it very quickly. Today, most people that say they hate it probably never even played it. They just jump on the bandwagon of the stories.
Imagine playing a game that is this obtuse, without having a guide, or a FAQ, or in most cases, even a friend who had the same game to share strategies with?
So ET got so sick on Earth that he nearly died and the only thing that saved him was leaving to go to his own planet. Yet, he still risked the decline of his health again to break into this house and play the new Atari 2600 game? As an aside, I had the similar (but definitely a different game) ET Phone Home game for the Atari 8-bit. It looks like a better game than this.
I didn't so much hate that game as much as 7-8 year old me wasn't able to figure out what the hell was going on. I got stuck in one too many pits and gave up.
If you wanted to get the biggest headache of a lifetime back in the 80's, you'd set up an entire week with the only goal beating this game and Raiders of the Lost Arc. Both of those games were insanely cryptic. But if you knew EXACTLY how to play them, neither would last more than 30mins. I honestly know of no one in the 1980's on the military base I lived at who beat either of those games. Basically, if a game on the Atari 2600 had an ending, you were screwed. It wasn't until 6 years later when I got "The Legend of Zelda" did I ever beat a game that had a legit ending.
Yeah, the only way we even stood a chance was if we got our hands on the Atari magazine that might have some clues. 😂 That Raiders game was insane! I still have never beat it but would love to give it another shot.
There are certain things that it is 'cool' to hate in the internet world, for example, the Java programming language, candy corn, and the E.T Atari game, just as there are certain things that it is 'cool' to like (or, to say that you like, anyway), like Linux. By now these have become VERY VERY tired cliches, but some people just wont quit. I have never played this game before, but it doesnt look like it could possibly be as bad as some people try to make it.
Yeah, this game has become infamous and the story surrounding it obviously blew up over time. I will always enjoy this game. Have since I first got it when it came out. The game is far from perfect, but no where near as bad as the stories make it out to be.
The game wasn't bad TV news stories at the time hype up the story because the game was thrown out into landfill. the thing was Atari made too many of the cartridges thinking they would sell like crazy because of the movie. It was because at the time there was the game console crash of 1983 and no one was buying any games.
When I first heard legend of the worst game/destroyed an industry/ buried in landfill, I thought there must've been defective copies or something. As for me, this was one of the better games on Atari, no contrarianism here. Most Atari games were: introduce scenario, repeat scenario as it gets faster & more difficult, run out of lives and look at score. This game had a story and an objective, simple but taken for granted in future games.You had to have a strategy. There was a clear way to beat the game. I liked pitfall, but what was it but jumping and swinging, avoid crocs, there was no objective, no temple to enter or boss to duel. How do you beat Space Invaders? The legend of ET's awfulness started as a pebble and then snowballed as it was repeated by people who never played it until it's accepted as common knowledge today.
I had this game when i was a kid for the time the it was fun you just needed to figure out what to do. I beat it a number of times. Once i had a Nes this didn't age well. But i have played a lot worse games .
I remember playing Indiana Jones one as a kid, rented it from the library, it had me fascinated, but I got stuck at some point and could not figure out what to do next. Those games back then there was very little to no clues.
@ I remember something about using the parachute and catching it on a tree limb to get into a cave , and then using a shovel on a little hill , you had to move back and forth on it with the shovel equipped.
@@Dragonette666 You got a great memory. It is pretty vague to me 40+ years ago, outside of just really enjoyed the mystery of the game and trying to solve it. I just watched a vid of it, brings back memories now I watched it, I got pretty far as a kid. Such simple games back then, but so cryptic in how to solve the puzzles, it could take a long time to figure out.
Sometimes I wish we got this game instead of Raiders Of The Lost Ark back in the 90's because you need two controllers to play it which sucked because we don't have the instruction manual and learned about it until 20 years later.
The manual explains it all from what I have been hearing. I didn't have the manual when I was a kid, though. I actually have a copy of it being delivered soon and will cover it in an upcoming video.
I kept seeing this video, and finally clicked on it to confirm that if you had responded tot the title with anything other than “one goes insane” then I know you are full of it. This is quite possibly the most frustrating game ever made and there is a reason it populated the dump in New Mexico en masse.
Two movies I really enjoy 🤣. But that's the best part about this. You don't have to like everything that someone else does, and that's perfectly fine. 🍻👍🕹️🎮
Not a gamer myself, but i dig em and have obsessed before on beating a few…ET wasn’t ever frustrating to Me but nconfusing…but i was pretty young still…3 or 4, a little older years later at visits to GMas and Gpas house lol
Wanna see that PS1 E.T. game I mentioned at the end? Check it out right here: th-cam.com/video/IcxKCeRs1o0/w-d-xo.html
Collect 9 pieces of reese's pieces, call Elliot, he will return and give you a piece of the phone.
Wait, what?!?!? Is that true? Oh man, I gotta try that!
@@MatCaveGaming Yes it's true. Very helpful in the later levels when the game gets very hard. Plus any reeces you give Elliot turns into more points at Elliot's house after the ship takes you home. You'll see his mouth symbol munch as your score goes up. Extending ET's head before you land at the bottom of any pit saves you energy. The games is fun and has a lot of strategy to it.
Cancel
Reply
I never knew THAT (Elliot could provide a phone piece)
I remember playing this when I was little. I was sure I was doing something wrong. This is the most I have ever understood about the game. Thank you! Very nostalgic. Subscribed!
Thank you so much for watching! Glad I could bring back some nostalgic memories for you. 😊👍🕹️🎮
You never had to call for the spaceship. After you summon it from the spaceship icon spot, you had to wait at the Landing Zone Target spot. You had to evade humans until it comes, and be on the target spot when the timer runs out.
Ah, got ya! I could never quite tell what the right method was. It always felt random. 🍻👍
It was rewarding when you could pull it off though . I only did it a couple times back in ‘83 when I was 11 lol.
Loved this game as a kid. Its nit that bad. Its only bad because the internet said so. There are so many games that are much worse
Ok, you freaked me out with that intro. I remember that Atari commercial from when it aired. It's rare to tap into the memory banks that deep. Lol.
Thank you for that.
LOL! That's awesome! I love finding those old commercials that I grew up with. So nostalgic!
Seeing the commercial for this game brings back memories. When I was a kid, my favorite movie was E.T. the Extraterrestrial. It still is today. I was 9 and this was in 1982. I was an only child and every Friday was movie night at the theatre and the only movie I chose to watch was E.T. I saw that movie so many times that I knew all the characters lines because that was the only movie I wanted to see until it quit showing in the theatre. I also had an Atari 2600 and when I heard that E.T. was coming for it I was exstatic! So for Christmas that year that was the only thing I wanted was that game. I cared about nothing else. I got it, played for 5 min and never played it again. It sucked! When I came down from my room after playing it for such a short time, my mom asked if I was done with it already. I told her it sucked. She didn't think it could be that bad, so I showed her. She agreed. Since she kept the receipt we went back to the store she bought it from the next day and I chose another ont that I also wanted which was Pit Fall. If it wasn't for this game being released, then I don't think the video game crash of the 80s would have happened.
Wow! That's rough! This game definitely had one of the most significant impacts in video game history.
Calling Elliot scores points after the rescue for every candy he takes. If you have 9 candies and call Elliott, he’ll chase away humans and find a phone piece for ET.
Loved this when I was a kid. Still do. Part of the problem was that so few of us actually read the manual or the "hint guide" that explained a lot of how to play, as well as the different difficulty settings like other Atari games. A copy of this cart signed by Howard Scott Warshaw sits enshrined with my game collection in a laser-cut wood version of ET's spaceship. He has stated in interviews and his book that if he had just a couple more days to work on the game, several of the major complaints could have been fixed, like the hit detection for falling in to pits.
It would have been amazing if he was able to work on it further.
Oh man! That copy you have sounds awesome! 🕹️👍🍻
I feel old. I remember that ET Comercial.
I agree. I used to enjoy this game a ton when I was a kid and played it. (When it first came out.) I spent hours on it. It was actually way ahead of its time, because it's one of the first times where a player could go exploring from one screen to another, find pieces of things and put them together. The fact that the game remembered things happening off screen and kept track of where things were was way beyond what others were doing. The blame for this game really came from the fact that Atari itself was making some really bad decisions at the time, and this game became the scape goat. It was easy to do because there were some mistakes within it, which happens when you have a shortened testing time. Games today come out with FAAAR more bugs than this had. The difference is that today they send a patch, but back then, it couldn't be changed. But in general, us kids in those days were used to just working around things, understanding and accepting the bugs, and enjoying it in spite of the problems. (We also walked to school in ten feet of snow, uphill both ways... and we LIKED it, dammit!)
100% spot on!
I love that game, my father bring it to me that 1983 christmas, along with the great Sears Video Arcade II, my first console ever! Yes is a broken game but I remember it had a sort of ending, which it was not common in Atari games. I played it a lot! and still have it! Greetings froma 46 YO guy from Ecuador!
That's awesome! And welcome to the channel!
The holy grail of understanding this game's layout is to grab a cube (like a Rubik's cube), put the landing field on the top, the house/buildings on the bottom, and the 4 different pit fields around the 4 sides. And when elevating out of the pit, always stop right after the top, then move down onto the grass so you don't fall back in. It's not a difficult game at this point, and you should win 50% of the time (timing, of course, is everything).
That's a really cool way of picturing the layout! Wow! I am legit blown away by that. 🍻👍🕹️
I agree. This game was a lot of fun for me when I was a kid! So I think the Reese‘s Pieces that Elliot gets from you during the game are added to your final score after you “beat“ the game for all game variations. Also, in the first two game variations, you have to give Elliott Reese‘s pieces in order for him to “create“ phone pieces that you would find in the pits. Game variations after 1-2 do not have this requirement.
Ah, got ya! Okay, that makes a lot more sense!
I’ve always enjoyed this game. Even my kids like it. Sure, it was a tough game, but back then, most games were.
the hum at the end only happens if you hit the button to make ETs head go up just before the spaceship picks him up. If you look closely, doing that makes it so that ET doesn't quite fit in the ship, and the hum is triggered because that's the sound made when his head extends and retracts, only at the end screen (Elliot's house) his head is stuck part way extended, hence the sound.
Ah, got ya! Okay, that's actually a fun little glitch. 🤣👍🍻
Hey! Great video! I really liked this game when I was a kid as well. It's just greatly misunderstood. I think I can help you with some of the things you said you didn't understand.
First, the icon that gives you energy for Reese's is a mouth with a Reese's inside. So when you use that icon, you're "eating" the candy for energy.
If you call Elliot and give him candy, it will count towards your score at the end of the game. At the end you'll see the mouth icon open and close for each Reese's you gave him in the game. Your score will go up for each one he eats. If you ever collect nine pieces at once and give them to Elliot, he'll give you a phone piece as well as count nine pieces towards your score at the end.
When you use the spaceship icon to "phone home", you have to go to the landing site (the target) in the forest. You don't need to "use" it by raising your head... you just have to be there when the countdown hits zero. So I woudln't waste your energy on that icon. However, the ship will NOT arrive if there are any humans in the forest. So it's a good idea to know where the "go home" icon is in the forest (looks like a roman numeral three). If a human arrives, you can run there and tell them to "go home" and hopefully you can get back to the landing site and they'll be gone before the ship is scheduled to arrive.
Thank you! I've been learning so much more about this game thanks to viewers like you. I'm now really excited to go revisit this game, again! 🍻🕹️👍
Howard Scott Warshaw gets a lot of flack for this game, but A) It is not nearly as bad as people think it is; B) It is a pretty uncommon one because it has a full screen title screen with a picture!; and C) HSW only had FIVE WEEKS to actually make the game to have it ready for the holiday season. Most games back then took 6 months or more to create. There are MANY much worse games for the system. I think the main reason people don't like it is because it can be VERY frustrating to get E.T. out of a pit only to have him fall immediately back in. But once you learn the secret it's not too bad (Don't let go of the fire button until you are COMPLETELY clear of the pit). Practice that move over and over until you have it perfected.
It was way better than PAC-Man LOL
I had the game when I was a kid but I had to read a magazine article on how to finish it!
You had a very hard time as a grown man. Imagine being 6-7-8 years old trying to figure this shit out. That's why it gets the reputation it deserves.
It’s a tough game, especially on the main modes with the 2 people going after E.T.
I’m trying to get my hands on an original manual. I would love to see how much information on how to play was in it.
I loved that game as a kid.
Completed this when I was 6 yrs old. Never understood why ppl hated it saying it couldn't be completed.
This was my favorite game as a kid
I never even knew that it sucked
I'm guess you were very young when you got it? I was 12 when it came out, so me an my friends just laughed at it, but it seemed like everyone's 5 or 6 year old little brother loved it.
I was the only one in my group of nerd friends to solve this game back in 1983. I think that made me more of a nerd.
My one friend said the flower once turned into a bird. Everyone of us thought he was full of baloney. Turns out he was right. If you ate a certain amount of Reese's Pieces & fell into the hole with the dead flower, it'll turn into either a bird or the Galaga ship.
Crazy.
I just found out about that Easter Egg in the comments of this video! Such a cool thing to have in the game.
I played that maybe a year after it came out,yes I'm ancient
I was there in the 80's and do not hate the game. It could not live up to its hype. That commercial was too good. I like abstract games. It reminded me of Raiders of the Lost Ark if you lost the instruction manual. However, it did earn its reputation. Up until that moment, players celebrated designers and that number was as few as one per game. In this case, Howard Scott Warshaw. Being a "programmer" in the 1980s was being a legend. When the 2600 was at its height, business and marketing people took control with unrealistic development schedules. Customers didn't reject video games, they rejected the video games ran by marketing teams and accountants. Similar analogies can be applied to the abbreviated edition of Donkey Kong (no pie level because of Christmas) and whatever excuse used for Pacman. Pacman, I hate.
Video Game trailer with only a smidgeon of gameplay is wild
That's how it was back in the day. Other than that, all we had to go on was the box art while standing at either Toys R Us or the video rental store. 🍻🕹️🎮👍
Love the old commercial. My buddy got ET for Christmas. Neither of us could figure it out. I think we wound up playing Demons to Diamonds instead.
Certainly a tough game, but I highly recommend giving it another shot. 👍🕹️🍻
Y’all should have bought the “how to win at ET” from your scholastic book club in school
Now that would have been amazing! 🤣🍻
Big Like 👍
I never played this game as a kid, since we didn't have an ATARI. But when I played it 5 or 6 year ago I didn't understand the commotion. Sure you need the manual but that goes for a lot of 80s games. And when you read the manual you understand the layout of the play field and it's actually quite addictive. The only bad thing is the collision detection off the pits but nothing that another extra day of debugging couldn't have been fixed.
💯
I'd never seen E.T. played before. Thank you. ❤
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching 😊👍
To leave is simple, just do what you’re doing, but don’t leave the spot. The symbol has to be stood in the whole time, and make sure the bad guys aren’t there as the ship can’t pick E.T up when they are on screen. Also you don’t have to press the fire button
I will be revisiting this game again soon. I was able to find the original manual and in great condition, too! Will be covering soon. 🍻🕹️👍
Imagine if a time traveler fixed this game to be epic and went back in time to give it to atari
From a player's standpoint, the issues with the game were 1) It didn't follow the movie that closely and 2) It was so freaking hard (I only was able to complete it on the easiest difficulty). From an economic standpoint, even though it sold moderately well, Atari expected to sell (and manufactured) an unrealistic amount of them, and so they were not able to recoup the manufacturing expenses, which sent the company into a tailspin, contributing to the videogame crash.
If they would have just given the developer more time and not worried so much about the timing of the release, we'd be talking a whole other story, or quite possibly, no story at all. Pretty amazing what an impact this game had.
I got an Atari for Christmas 1982, when I was 5. My family was poor, ET was one of the only games I had, and the frustration it caused probably explains why I didn't become a gamer.
Oh wow. That's unfortunate. I hope you eventually found a game you liked!
Definitely a case of RTFM syndrome with this game... I did read it, but after I did, I only liked Game 3, where Elliott was the only human to show up. The scientist and the FBI agent were both _way_ too annoying. It was hard enough trying to find all the phone pieces, the Call Ship zone and the Landing zone before E.T.'s energy count dropped to 0 anyway, didn't need the other two nuisances making life difficult. Lol. I did try Games 1 (everybody there) and 2 (just Elliott and the FBI agent) a few times just to see if I could and to be able to say that I tried, but Game 3 was (and still is to this day) my favorite way to play Atari E.T. (P.S. Emulators are a godsend nowadays.).
It became an early youtube Millennial fad to say "E.T. is the worst game ever". But back in the 80's it was just considered an average ok game that required reading the manual to beat. The fact it had opening sceen music and an ending made it interesting since only several Atari games could be beat.
It definitely stood out from most other Atari 2600 games. I would go back and forth between playing E.T. and The Empire Strikes Back.
@@MatCaveGamingthe game also has an Easter Egg where you can meet the Yars character from Yars revenge at the bottom of one of the pits that appears as a flower first. I love stuff like that
I didn't know that happened! I've seen the flower before, but never the cameo. That's awesome!
@MatCaveGaming either you have to touch the flower or do some kind of code with the joystick and the flower turns into the Yars character and also the Indiana Jones character can appear too. I never knew about these Easter eggs until the internet age like most.
I haven't had the chance to play this game, it looks difficult, but my 80s self would probably like it.
If you can get your hands on a copy, I highly recommend giving it a shot. 👍🕹️
I had E.T. FOR THE 2600 and I enjoyed it. It was rare at the time wherein it had an ending rather than just a mindless chase for points.
That's one of the things that really stood out to me, too. Having an ending in an Atari 2600 game was definitely rare for sure!
I remember watching the movie in the cinemas here in Australia
I first saw it on VHS, but I did get to see the re-release in theaters. Such a great movie.
Nah, it's a bad game. Now considering Howard Warshaw only had 5 weeks to create the entire game from scratch, it's an excellent attempt at a franchise adaptation, but from a game play perspective the game is boring as hell. The game starts and you have no idea what to do. As a kid, I'm not sure I've even seen the movie at that point so I had zero guide. Now starting a game with zero instruction isn't a bad thing and can lead to discovery. A good example is The Legend of Zelda. In ET you can figure out a few things. ? shows the right pit. Collect items in pits and black dots and that is about it. The rest or just random symbols. No indication of how many items you need, where to go and why the hell does that guy keep taking me to the Roman buildings?
The fact than 40 years later and you still don't know how half of the mechanics work is a testament to how unintuitive this game is. On top of that it is just boring. Falling into a pit is the most action that happens. Oh no, it's the 10th time falling into a pit. How will I get out of this one? Extends neck. Now compare ET to most other good game of the time. Defender, Missile Command, Plaque Attack, Horse Racing, Barnstorming, Jungle Hunt, Mouse Trap and many more. You turn on the game and instant action. You have an idea of what you need to do. You know what squares are bad and what shapes are good. People returned ET to stores for a reason.
If this game got the development it should have, it really could have been great. I still enjoy the game and have since it first came out, but even still, it is full of flaws. The amount of frustration that players dealt with was more than enough to make them quit playing it. I don't recall how much information was in the instructions manual. Many Atari 2600 games had more than enough info on how to play within the manuals, but my manual is long since gone.
I played this alot growing up. NOT the worst game ever made, that award gos to fortnight. 98% of people that say its bad, never played it and can't make their own opinion, youtube does that for them. Anyway, the brown coat guy is the fbi and the white coat guy is a scientist. Calling Eliot is for a phone piece, collect Reese's call him. Once you make the phone, find the ship icon call it, you must be on the target landing zone for pick up at the end of the timer. The question marks make phone pieces flash, the circle with a dot is to eat Reese's to regain health, the face is to call Eliot, the III symbol makes the fbi and scientist leave you alone breifly. The arrows will move you to that location. Thats pretty much all you need to know.
I never realized, until reading through the comments, that Elliot would actually get phone parts for you. That's a game changer!
You can get back out of the holes??? Well, thats where i failed...
Definitely the part of the game that made tons of players throw the joystick. LOL. I have found that getting out as close to the sides as possible works best.
There's a nice rom out there that fixes a lot of the game's issues including ET's colour and you don't fall into pits unless your feet touch them. I imagine Howard would have sorted all the gameplay out had he had more than five weeks to actually write the thing! I still think it's a great game to have come out with in the ridiculous time frame he was given.
Oh cool! I gotta try and find that rom!
I had the Atari 2600 here's a few of my favorite games jungle hunt, river raid, and my favorite yars revenge.
I never had this game for my Atari, but from the description and screenshots, it always seemed like it was along the same lines as Raiders of the Lost Ark. I DID have that game, and I really liked it, even though without the manual, it was just as confusing as E.T.
I'm hoping to get a copy of Raiders so that I can finally beat that game.
Love it or hate it, E.T. is arguably one of the most important games in gaming history for so many reasons. It deserves to be honored and preserved.
100% AGREE! 👍🍻🕹️
In one of the pits you'll find a flower. This doesn't show up when you use the question mark. What it does is give ET extra times he can run out of energy.
Heh. Now try raiders of the lost ark for the 2600 next. THAT game will give you fits, and I'd love to see you do a video on that.
Working on obtaining a copy. I really want to give Raiders another shot!
@@MatCaveGaming try raiders of the lost EBAY
The Game is a classic, The business decisions surrounding it's release were bad. Between this and Pac-Man, Atari was counting on them selling around 3 million consoles, so they made WAY too many copies. They didn't end up in that landfill for being bad games.
I liked it, it seemed like an adventure game.
I loved this game as a kid - I never understood ‘the worst game ever’ title. As an Atari VCS game, it was fun and challenging, like Adventure but better. You had to read the manual.
Yes many copies of this game went a landfill... Along with the majority of other Atari games at the time.
I loved it too.
being a kid I was like i when i beat the game i thought that was the second level not the game restarting till now
E.T. was one of the best games on the 2600, i had it as a young young kid, understood it, enjoyed it, finished it. Anyone who dislikes it has no brain as far as I am concerned.
I wouldn't go as far as saying they have no brain, but I will say that most people that disliked this game back then had given up on it very quickly. Today, most people that say they hate it probably never even played it. They just jump on the bandwagon of the stories.
Imagine playing a game that is this obtuse, without having a guide, or a FAQ, or in most cases, even a friend who had the same game to share strategies with?
I wish I still had the manual. I don't remember how much, or how little, information was in it.
All the info you needed was in the manual.
Play return to zork once...🤣😂🤣😂
So ET got so sick on Earth that he nearly died and the only thing that saved him was leaving to go to his own planet. Yet, he still risked the decline of his health again to break into this house and play the new Atari 2600 game?
As an aside, I had the similar (but definitely a different game) ET Phone Home game for the Atari 8-bit. It looks like a better game than this.
I didn't so much hate that game as much as 7-8 year old me wasn't able to figure out what the hell was going on. I got stuck in one too many pits and gave up.
Totally understandable. Hope you get to give it another shot! 🕹️🍻👍
They should have made E.T. brown in color at least. Then he would have looked more realistic.
Yeah, even with the rushed development, they should have at least got that part right.
My brother had the same E.T. plushie.
It's the original Showtime plush, too! I've had that since I was a baby. Now my kids play with him. 😊
This just looks like the Indiana Jones game
If you wanted to get the biggest headache of a lifetime back in the 80's, you'd set up an entire week with the only goal beating this game and Raiders of the Lost Arc. Both of those games were insanely cryptic. But if you knew EXACTLY how to play them, neither would last more than 30mins. I honestly know of no one in the 1980's on the military base I lived at who beat either of those games. Basically, if a game on the Atari 2600 had an ending, you were screwed. It wasn't until 6 years later when I got "The Legend of Zelda" did I ever beat a game that had a legit ending.
Yeah, the only way we even stood a chance was if we got our hands on the Atari magazine that might have some clues. 😂
That Raiders game was insane! I still have never beat it but would love to give it another shot.
*Ark.. and I beat both of these games back in the day with no hints, cheats, or internet to tell me how.
Love it! HUGE props for beating Raiders! That game was no joke. 🍻
Beat both at the age of 11. 😊 No headaches.
I beat both of them, just had nothing better to do and my mom would buy me games left and right to keep me off the street lol
There are certain things that it is 'cool' to hate in the internet world, for example, the Java programming language, candy corn, and the E.T Atari game, just as there are certain things that it is 'cool' to like (or, to say that you like, anyway), like Linux. By now these have become VERY VERY tired cliches, but some people just wont quit.
I have never played this game before, but it doesnt look like it could possibly be as bad as some people try to make it.
Yeah, this game has become infamous and the story surrounding it obviously blew up over time. I will always enjoy this game. Have since I first got it when it came out. The game is far from perfect, but no where near as bad as the stories make it out to be.
There was also an ET game for the Gameboy Advance or DS, forget which one.
Oh no! 🤣
You lose your mind, pull out the cart, and throw it across the room.
🤣I'm sure that happened on plenty of occasions.🤣
The game wasn't bad TV news stories at the time hype up the story because the game was thrown out into landfill. the thing was Atari made too many of the cartridges thinking they would sell like crazy because of the movie. It was because at the time there was the game console crash of 1983 and no one was buying any games.
Yeah, this game ended up with such an undeserved bad reputation.
When I first heard legend of the worst game/destroyed an industry/ buried in landfill, I thought there must've been defective copies or something.
As for me, this was one of the better games on Atari, no contrarianism here. Most Atari games were: introduce scenario, repeat scenario as it gets faster & more difficult, run out of lives and look at score.
This game had a story and an objective, simple but taken for granted in future games.You had to have a strategy. There was a clear way to beat the game.
I liked pitfall, but what was it but jumping and swinging, avoid crocs, there was no objective, no temple to enter or boss to duel. How do you beat Space Invaders?
The legend of ET's awfulness started as a pebble and then snowballed as it was repeated by people who never played it until it's accepted as common knowledge today.
Exactly! This game, though certainly rushed in development, gets way too much hate that it really doesn't deserve.
@MatCaveGaming Absolutely!
An endless stream of expletives springs forth from your mouth? That’s what happens when I play 2600 E.T. at least.
As it has done to SO many players over the years. 🤣🍻🕹️🎮
E.t is also on the Gameboy and Gameboy advance
I wonder if the fate of the game would have been different if we had read the instructions! 😂
Very possible! 🤣
Smurfs was more fun and that freaking music 😂😂😂
ET on Atari and Goonies 2 on NES= 🗑 Damaged my childhood 😢
Oh man, I remember trying to get through "Goonies 2"! That game might actually be worse. 🤣
if i had a choice between this game and listening to yoko ono sing -- this game would be my choice. i need my sanity.
🤣🤣🤣
I had this game when i was a kid for the time the it was fun you just needed to figure out what to do. I beat it a number of times. Once i had a Nes this didn't age well. But i have played a lot worse games .
Played this a a friend’s house and he asked if I wanted to play the worst game ever. It was stupidly easy
I had no problems playing this game.
I read the instructions and off i went.
I actually just today found a manual in good condition on eBay and bought it.
back in the day I finished this game and the indiana jones game . the indy one was better
I need to give that "Raiders of the Lost Ark" another shot. I would love to finish it!
I remember playing Indiana Jones one as a kid, rented it from the library, it had me fascinated, but I got stuck at some point and could not figure out what to do next. Those games back then there was very little to no clues.
@ I remember something about using the parachute and catching it on a tree limb to get into a cave , and then using a shovel on a little hill , you had to move back and forth on it with the shovel equipped.
@@Dragonette666 You got a great memory. It is pretty vague to me 40+ years ago, outside of just really enjoyed the mystery of the game and trying to solve it.
I just watched a vid of it, brings back memories now I watched it, I got pretty far as a kid. Such simple games back then, but so cryptic in how to solve the puzzles, it could take a long time to figure out.
I was 10 years old in 82 when this came out. It was a horrible game then and will always be. The game is an embarrassment.
While I don't agree, I definitely understand where you're coming from. 🍻🕹️
This game was easy to beat !!! After you beat it a few times it got boring !!! I had it back in 1983 !!!
I got this game on the atari and hated it lol one of the worst games I ever played
I don't blame ya! 🤣
Sometimes I wish we got this game instead of Raiders Of The Lost Ark back in the 90's because you need two controllers to play it which sucked because we don't have the instruction manual and learned about it until 20 years later.
That game sucked so hard,porn stars were losing work.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
No, it really sucked.
I've always enjoyed this game, but it definitely did not land for most players.
Games a terrible., Boring sluggish too cryptic and confusing. Thats why they were refunding it .
The manual explains it all from what I have been hearing. I didn't have the manual when I was a kid, though. I actually have a copy of it being delivered soon and will cover it in an upcoming video.
I kept seeing this video, and finally clicked on it to confirm that if you had responded tot the title with anything other than “one goes insane” then I know you are full of it. This is quite possibly the most frustrating game ever made and there is a reason it populated the dump in New Mexico en masse.
Got ya. Liking something you don't is wrong. Noted. 🍻👍🕹️
always loved it, never had issues with it
most people are just dum
The game is certainly frustrating at many times, but overall I always liked it. Not having the manual made the experience far worse, for sure.
So a clickbait title. Where specifically do you address in the video, what the title describes?
Throughout. 🤣
Shared my experience with the game and question the strange things within the game. It's a game that has confused players for decades.
ET is SO highly overrated! It's almost as over-rated as Forrest Gump, the steamiest pile ever! Yuck!
Two movies I really enjoy 🤣. But that's the best part about this. You don't have to like everything that someone else does, and that's perfectly fine. 🍻👍🕹️🎮
Not a gamer myself, but i dig em and have obsessed before on beating a few…ET wasn’t ever frustrating to Me but nconfusing…but i was pretty young still…3 or 4, a little older years later at visits to GMas and Gpas house lol