E.T. to leave the Earth

[Pleng]

Why would they do that?

Could be something as simple as an administration error.

As others have eluded to, no matter how badly a company was run there's no way they'd intentionally over order by such a margin. But a poorly administrated company could easily have one hungover staff member write one too many zeros in a quantity column on an order, and one exec who doesn't give a shit could quite easily have signed it off without reading it.

 

[DJPlace]

I've read somewhere that this game was rushed? What I mean by rushed is that they wanted it out quickly it think it was only made in 3-6 months

 

[The Milkman]

sooo.... is it me, or did EVERYONE just fall for the obvious troll?

 

[KidIce]

thank you for that completely unfounded and ridiculous statement. perhaps you should actually try playing it.

do you blame the game or should you blame the huge production run?

this game is hated because history tells you to hate it. it actually is a surprisingly fun game. it featured the first home game title screen. it featured an ending cut scene that may have been a first. it featured multiple goals that could be obtained in multiple ways, in a open-ended world. it packed all of the major aspects of the movie, non-violently, into a tiny 16kb rom.

the only things to complain about is the difficulty it takes to escape some of the pit falls and the collision detection. and if those are your hang-ups then i suggest you give this a read: http://www.neocomputer.org/projects/et/

-another world

Ridiculous? Maybe. The cancer bit was an obvious joke but I'll accept ridiculous.

Unfounded? No. It's your assumption that I've never played the game because my opinion of it differs from yours that is unfounded.

I owned a VCS in the 80's. I had the game back in those days, even finished it once or twice, and I assure it sucks. Its "firsts" and technical accomplishments do not over come its piss poor and epically frustrating game play. The fact that your link spends a good portion of the page providing code to fix said issues only proves my point. History isn't what makes me think ET on the VCS sucked, experience does. You have no idea how glad I was when I managed to trade it to a class mate for Raiders of the Lost Ark.

 

[Another World]

As I am looking at both my original Atari 2600 and my copy of the game, I can assure you that you can not assure me that "it sucks". the game is hardly frustrating. the pit falls can be frustrating, yet it is possible to win the game without going in a single pit.

-another world

 

[J-Machine]

My copy of E.T. cries over this news. It seems both stupid and soul crushing to finally know whats going to be in there instead of having a wonderful modern day myth.

 

[kehkou]

Whats with the poverty stuff? Is it cause NM is one of the poorest states (we can't even afford water).

I've read somewhere that this game was rushed? what i mean by rushed is that they wanted it out quickly it think it was only made in 3-6 months

More like 5-6 weeks.

 

[mechadylan]

I can't imagine anything of real value being retrieved from this. It's not a tomb, vault, sarcophagus, time capsule, etc.; it's a landfill! I doubt anything was carefully placed in there.

 

[kehkou]

I can't imagine anything of real value being retrieved from this. It's not a tomb, vault, sarcophagus, time capsule, etc.; it's a landfill! I doubt anything was carefully placed in there.

Its a piece of gaming history (for me a personal intrest as I reside in NM and was born in the same west Texas city as those cartriges) and a key to the North American Video game crash of '83. That is, of course, if teh rumorz b tru.

 

[KidIce]

As I am looking at both my original Atari 2600 and my copy of the game, I can assure you that you can not assure me that "it sucks". the game is hardly frustrating. the pit falls can be frustrating, yet it is possible to win the game without going in a single pit.

-another world

Your opinion of the game is very different from mine, and I probably should have worded my statement better to reflect this, "I can assure you that I thought the game sucked even when I owned a copy." It may very well be possible to finish the game w/o going into a single pit but that was not the case w/ me. I knew I needed Gertie's flower, which always seemed to be in a pit. Also, while the "enemies couldn't hurt you" they most certainly could make your trials difficult and so you ran from them... Often into a pit.

I don't agree w/ some of the YouTube videos and other legend induced hatred for this game that has spread, but I'd rather play Combat in two player mode by myself than ET. To put it bluntly of all the games I ever owned on the 2600, that is the only game I ever had any animosity about... And I even owned Jedi Arena and at one point thought Dragon Stomper was awesome ('cause it was the closest thing to D&D I could play on a electronic device that I owned at the time).

Yeah... I'm exploiting the bandwagon hatred to post a bit of comedy, but the fact of the matter is I hated that game back when I got it as a Christmas present and I still have the same feelings today.

 

[FireGrey]

Yup, a documentary about digging up a landfill full of crap that nobody wanted then and nobody wants now is going to be gripping stuff. Or they could make a useful documentary about the uneven distribution of wealth in the United States and how some people can't afford to go to the Doctor whilst rich spoiled kids fret about the specs of the new Xbox. Coming from the Philippines I would expect you to understand the divide between haves and have-nots.

The OP explains why it will be an interesting documentary, the failure of E.T. was the "Catalyst" of the gaming industry crash and them burying the games is the highlight of their failure.
I would much rather watch a documentary about the video games industry crash than watch a documentary about how poor people are poor while rich people are rich.
Also shut the hell up about how it's bad that there are people that are poor, go give them your money instead of complaining about a documentary cause it has nothing to do with poor people

 

[kehkou]

The OP explains why it will be an interesting documentary, the failure of E.T. was the "Catalyst" of the gaming industry crash and them burying the games is the highlight of their failure.
I would much rather watch a documentary about the video games industry crash than watch a documentary about how poor people are poor while rich people are rich.
Also shut the hell up about how it's bad that there are people that are poor, go give them your money instead of complaining about a documentary cause it has nothing to do with poor people

Amen.

 

[tatripp]

They should put this game on virtual console.

 

[Lumstar]

I'd love to watch a documentary about it considering that it would likely be a way of describing the E.T. cartridges to the crash of the video game industry, which, as a gamer, I find to be a very interesting. Sure, I'd also find a documentary about economic classes in the United States very interesting, but if I wanted to watch one, I'd get one since there are hundreds of documentaries about the economic status of the US. For chrissake, I just watched one on HBO last night.

You are blatantly ignoring the fact that the best thing about the media is its diversity. You can make a movie, a book, a tv show, a video game, an essay, a painting, or whatever about anything, and their being art ensures that you can go wild with them. You can make anything about anything, and I don't think we should limit these to things that are related to economics or politics or whatever. And normally, something like this, which would likely describe a crash of an industry, would always contain a hint of economic or cultural implication. Most films use their subject matter to imply something deeper than what the story suggests.


And there are approximately 500 fucking movies and documentaries on poverty here in the Philippines. For chrissake, we even have a sub-genre of film called Poverty Porn. I am already on a sensory overload from them. I have watched way too many of them for a 16 year old boy. I KNOW. And obviously, as a Filipino, I care. But really, I was talking about a Canadian company making a documentary about a topic that I, as an individual, would find interesting. And I don't think the fact that my society has poverty or a division of class should have any influence on that matter.

I mean, the highest grossing Filipino film in our history? A comedy. The second is also a comedy. The two films were watched by everyone, rich and poor. The people already know about their problems; we see it on the news, we see it in our movies, we even hear it in our songs, but every trip to the movies doesn't have to be devoted to reminding them of that.

That's getting off track. If there isn't enough relation between E.T. and the Philippines, probably best saved for another topic.

 

[Taleweaver]

I've got to admit...after a few not-so-pleasant first thoughts, the idea isn't so bad at all.

First off: this filming company obviously isn't "just" going to dig around and film the result. A documentary about the video game crash of '83 could be very interesting (though it has to be said that Norman 'the gaming historian' Caruso already did a good job on that).

Second: why is it such a bad thing to poke around in there? This isn't some place carrying an ancient Egyptian curse or something, so I don't see the reason not to. Truth be told: if you want to make a documentary on old games, this is one of the few things you can actually show that isn't people talking or screen demo's. As far as story telling goes, it's actually quite a good angle.

 

[CannonFoddr]

Totally off-topic but when I started reading the OP I thought
Hmm.... 'ET' & 'Desert location'

OMG - this is the REAL Area 51 !!!!!

 

[kehkou]

Totally off-topic but when I started reading the OP I thought
Hmm.... 'ET' & 'Desert location'

OMG - this is the REAL Area 51 !!!!!

so that's why Alamagordo has an Air Force base!

 

[wojiaolsya]

WHAT A GREAT GAME!!!