Atari 2600 - Atari - 1982

E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial

Genre: Adventure - Joystick-Driven
Year: 1982
Controls: Joystick
Publisher: Atari
Players: 1
Country
Programmer(s): Warshaw, Howard Scott
Medium
Format: NTSC
Rarity
Dump: Missing dump(s)
Serial: CX2674

OTHER VERSIONS WITH THE SAME TITLE (4)

OTHER VERSIONS WITH A DIFFERENT TITLE (2)

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS

Personalized version of the game, handed over to Steven Spielberg by Howard Scott Warshaw, where on power-up you see the name STEVEN on screen.

ADS (12)

VIDEOS (26)

How to Beat Home Video Games II - E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial

E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial

Wintergreen - When I Wake Up

E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial

American Hot Stuff

The Electric Playground - Atari 2600

Toys"R"Us Commercial

E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial

Howard Scott Warshaw Part II

Howard Scott Warshaw Part I

Pac-Man / E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie

Alamogordo Atari E.T. Landfill Excavation

Atari: Game Over

Yars' Revenge / Asteroids / Star Raiders / E.T.

E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie - Howard Scott Warshaw Speaks

CGF 2015 - Howard Scott Warshaw Full Keynote

TIPS (1)

How to Win at E.T. the Video Game

DEALER DISPLAYS (3)

MOBILES (1)

OTHER (1)

PINS / BADGES / MEDALS (1)

POSTERS (1)

STICKERS (1)

VOTES / STATISTICS

Rating5.1/10

Hits: 239
Downloads: 0
Votes: 15

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COMMENTS (4)

Dan16 Jun 2020
It's really not as bad as they say. It's not even the worst game on the 2600 let alone of all time. Yes, Atari paid too much for the rights and produced way too many cartridges so they lost a ton of money on it. Although it still sold 1.5 million carts making it the 8th best selling game on the platform. Despite demanding the game be delivered in just 5 weeks, HSW did a pretty good job in my opinion. 10 year old me loved the game and I still play it occasionally today. It took me all of 10 minutes to master how to get out of the pits and avoid dropping back in. I really don't know why this game gets all the hate. Tip: try starting with level 3 as you can get to know how to play without the scientist or FBI guy roaming around.
Charles A.26 Jan 2019
Saw a documentary called "Game Over" based around the Urban legend that this game was so bad that they dumped a million of them into a landfill and covered them with concrete. Well, it wasn't a million, but they did find the land fill with 728,000 various title in it. The programmer worked magic for only having not more than a month to knock out the game, due to a developer overpromising on a Christmas release date. He literally slept in the same room as the programing equipment and worked 7 days a weak, non stop. This game isn't great but it does have surprising depth, making you put together a transmitter to "phone home." The main complaint is you fall into pits and when you get to the top you fall right back in, over and over. Well, it was even in the manual, just go left or right not up or down and you can get out the first time. I had the attention span of a gnat and I was fine with this game as kid. Try it. It's really not that bad, just didn't live up to the hype.
eppy20006 Nov 2014
In 1982, Atari was still dominating the home video game market with (mostly) hit-after-hit of arcade conversions, and E.T. was a highly popular movie that had broken all the box office records at the time. Surely the two combined forces would have created an all-time best seller, right? Everything has been said of what a disaster the game was, and perhaps rightly or wrongly so depending on your POV. I couldn't get into the game back then and still can't get into the game today, even with the benefit of an emulator to save the progress as I go along. (Too frustrating!)
Tony16 Jan 2013
This game is much better than it's reputation. People would have you believe it was such a bad game it destroyed the entire videogame market. Nonsense! There are many many far worse 2600 games. If rushed, bad movie tie in games could really damage the industry, it would have died 1000 deaths by now. The real problem was the glut of low-quality software that meant games could not be sold anywhere near retail that caused the market crash. The problem with ET was only that it was over-hyped and over-produced. It's playable and winable. Is it annoying that you fall in pits too often? Yeah, but that can be avoided if you're careful.