![ET.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmRkHKUd1NTnnintjstzmqWLcjb7w1hR9mTSAAybirvy9z/ET.jpg)

Over the years, E.T. for the Atari 2600 has gained a notorious amount of hate and has been branded with the label of 'worst videogame of all time.'  This is a completely unfair assessment of this game and while its far from a masterpiece, it doens't deserve the hate that it gets.

# Doomed from the start #
<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmfRrPQKARJ28SFjfkVxjjLRjKV5D3tFBq619SRrrNw4gP/image.png)
*Atari's original headquarters*
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To understand why *E.T.* turned out the way it did, we have to take a look at Atari circa 1982.  They were completely caught off-guard as to how popular their system would become.  The company was full of people with little business experience and programmers were treated like rock stars.  There are countless stories about drugs, alcohol and other activities that you would expect to hear from members of Motley Crue, not by the guys who programmed the 2600 version of *Defender*.

This lack of experience and hubris from their unexpected success led the company to be careless and irresponsible.  When it came to high profile games like the 2600 port of *Pac-Man*, **Atari actually manufactured more cartridges of the game than consoles that had been sold**.  This overproduction led to the infamous landfill in New Mexico where thousands of unsold Atari cartridges were disposed of.

# The problem compounds


Atari desperately wanted to capitalize of the popularity of E.T. by cranking out a game for their system in time for Christmas in 1982.  The problem was that the deadline was quickly approaching.  The decision they were about to make illustrates how poorly Atari was being ran at this time:

<center>**Atari decided to rush the game for Christmas 1982 and paid $20 million to acquire the licensing rights for E.T.  With such a short window before the game had to be on store shelves, they gave a single programmer just over 5 weeks to create the game from scratch.**
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<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmbxykcre8QkCqsmc68pmcjtdCEgXF5uQxnm4YMzLAymSh/image.png)
*Howard Scott Warshaw at his workstation*</center>

Programmer Howard Scott Warshaw showed his talent and skill with the previous Atari 2600 hit *Yars Revenge*, which remains one of the best games on the system.  But the lack of time and overly ambitious concept doomed this game to fail.   Did Atari actually expect a quality game to be produced by a single programmer in just over a month?  They must have assumed so, since they gambled so much money to get the license for the property.

#  Is it really that bad?
![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmU9YeXqkkxnU1j57FncvouhEXHggEc6WjJprTUxpLqa1y/image.png)

*E.T.* is a troubled game that's the victim of its own ambition, but far from the worst game of all time.  Atari wanted Warshaw to crank out a simple *Pac-Man* clone they could profit from and move on, but Warshaw wanted to do something more interesting.  Most of the criticism of this game comes from people who didn't read the manual or misunderstood the goals.  

You play as E.T. and the object of the game is to collect the pieces of E.T.'s intergalactic telephone so he can be rescued.  You find these pieces in wells by exploring the map, which is where most of the criticism of the game is laid.  Getting out of the wells is done by raising your neck and floating out, but its really easy to fall back into the well.  There were enemies like the FBI agent or scientist that would thwart your progress by doing things like capturing you and taking any pieces of the telephone you had found so far.  Elliott helped you by leaving Reese's Pieces that served as your life bar and would also help you gain more pieces of the telephone.  The game was surprisingly complex considering the conditions it was developed under.

With an extra couple of weeks to polish the game, it could have been a classic on the system rather than the scapegoat of the crash that nearly killed the industry.


# It doesn't deserve the hate


There are countless games that had far more time, manpower and resources that are much worse than *E.T.*.  I'd argue that the horrible port of *Pac-Man* and the maddening and confusing *Swordquest:Earthworld* on the Atari 2600 were far worse than *E.T.*

<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmRYtaDrFAuDh3juNk2YhxhYqZVaxzuYZXh5dQj6aJ81EQ/image.png)
*Pac-Man was a mess.  Colors were wrong, dots were turned into bars, the ghosts flickered constantly, sound effects were horrible, I could go on...*</center>

In recent years we've been subjected to stinkers like *Superman 64* and *Vroom in the Night Sky*.  If you want to see a truly bad game, look into gameplay of *Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing*, which is a notoriously horrible game that was essentially broken and still released.  *E.T.* simply doesn't deserve to be in league with those horribly broken or unplayable messes.

*E.T.* simply found itself in a perfect storm of bad decisions and unfortunate timing.  Atari's poor decisions in the boardroom are what doomed this game, not any true fault of the game itself.  I was one of the kids who played it back in the early 80's and I actually had fun with it.  And that's what truly matters.

<center>![Decorative-Line-Black-PNG-Image.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmSHbisKuhhmHYNa9Wu8Ybb6kDXwLTWjNW1hYwaqNfU4HN/Decorative-Line-Black-PNG-Image.png)

#### What do you think? Did you ever give this famously maligned game a chance?  Let’s discuss! ####

## As always, upvotes, resteems and comments are appreciated! ##
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